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ERSE-SATIRE IN ENGLAND BEFORE 
THE RENAISSANCE 



BY 



SAMUEL MARION TUCKER 



Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for 

THE Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty 

OF Philosophy, Columbia University 



NEW YORK 
1908 




cCOv' 



4' 



.\:<N^ 



DEC aKJ:809^ 



VERSE-SATIRE IN ENGLAND BEFORE 
THE RENAISSANCE 



/ 



VERSE-SATIRE IN ENGLAND BEFORE 
THE RENAISSANCE 



BY 

SAMUEL MARION TUCKER 

M 



Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for 

THE Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty 

OF Philosophy, Columbia University 



NEW YORK 
T908 






Copyright, 1908 
By The Columbia University Press 

Printed from type November, 1908 



PRESS OF 

The new Era Printing Company 
Lancaster. Pa. 




This Monograph has been approved by the Department of Eng- 
lish in Columbia University as a contribution to knowledge worthy 

of publication, 

A. H. THORNDIKE, 

Secretary. 



TO MY MOTHER 



Vll 



PREFACE 

This essay is concerned with the historical study of literature 
and the evolution of literary types. For such a study the com- 
parative method forms the only sure guide. This point of view 
has made necessary the general treatment here followed : a 
survey of satirical literature in several languages, with an 
attempt to trace the influence of foreign satire upon the Eng- 
lish. So wide a survey is open to criticism on many grounds, 
but it is hoped that the material here brought together and the 
conclusions here reached may prove not without value for 
future investigations. 

The difficulties under which the work has been done have 
been considerable. There are no satisfactory terminology 
or criteria that might serve as a basis for the treatment of the 
Satire as a genre. Such terminology and criteria Chapter I 
of this book attempts to establish. Again, the very subject- 
matter with which the author has had to deal was found chaotic 
and widely distributed, some of it hardly accessible. An 
effort has been made to render this confused mass in some 
degree more coherent and significant. 

The amount of critical work on the Satire and on satirical 
literature in general, in the shape of books, essays, magazine 
articles, etc., is enormous. Yet, either through their merely 
popular character, their restricted point of view, or their desul- 
tory method, the vast majority of these studies was found un- 
suited to the purpose of the present work. Furthermore, no 
treatment of the evolution of the Satire as a genre in English 
has yet been attempted. Professor Alden's book, to which I 
gladly acknowledge my indebtedness, is an able and scholarly 
treatment of one period — that of the Elizabethan Satire. The 
present study in some measure leads up to Professor Alden's 
work, since it essays to trace the development of satirical 
verse in England from its beginnings down to the close of its 
first period, in 1540. 

Since this essay is in truth merely an introduction to the 
study and history of the English Satire, its first chapter, giving 

ix 



the theory of the Satire, may seem disproportionately long. 
This chapter was indeed planned to serve as an introduction to 
the study of the English Satire as a whole down to the time of 
Byron. It has been allowed to remain as originally written, 
in the hope that it may prove suggestive to other students. 

The historical point of view has been maintained throughout 
this essay. Only in its relation to life can the greater part of 
such matter as is here treated be of any significance or value. 
If we accept the work of Chaucer, of the author of Piers 
Plowman, and some of the best work of the Renaissance 
satirists in England, we must confess that very little satire of 
any great literary value was produced in England before the 
Age of Elizabeth. Hence such a product becomes of account 
only in its relation to contemporary life, in the illustrations it 
gives of English history in the broader sense, and, from the 
evolutionary standpoint, in its gradual development into some- 
thing higher. 

I am under obligations to the authorities of the Library of 
Columbia University for many courtesies through years of 
study. To Professor W. A. Neilson, of Harvard University, 
Professor G. P. Krapp, of the University of Cincinnati, Pro- 
fessor Brander Matthews and Professor J. B. Fletcher, of 
Columbia University, I am indebted for many excellent sug- 
gestions. My friends, Miss M. P. Conant, Professor of Eng- 
lish Literature at the Woman's College, Frederick, Md., and 
Mr. S. L. Wolff, of New York City, gave me the benefit of 
their advice in regard to the style of this book ; my friend and 
colleague. Dr. B. C. Bondurant, Professor of Classics at The 
Florida State College for Women, revised my treatment of the 
Classical Satire. To Professor A. H. Thorndike and Pro- 
fessor W. W. Lawrence, of Columbia University, I am im- 
mensely indebted for help in matter, method, and style. 

Above all, my grateful acknowledgment is due my friend and 
former teacher. Professor W. P. Trent, of Columbia University, 
at whose suggestion this study was undertaken, and without 
whose kind and continual assistance and encouragement it 
could never have reached a conclusion. 

Tallahassee^ Fla., 
January 19, 1909. 



CHAPTER I 
Introductory 

Great English satirists. — Difficulty of tracing the development of the 
English Satire. — Triple meaning of the word " satire." — The term " satiri- 
cal poetry." — Varieties and schools. — Five epochs in the history of satirical 
poetry in England. — Foreign influences. — Terminology and criteria. — Nature 
and working of the satirical spirit. — Catalogue of satirical genres. — Ele- 
ments of the satirical spirit. — Stimuli of the satirical spirit. — Instruments 
of the satirical spirit. — Satire in prose and in verse. — Distinction between 
the two forms. — Why satire is not poetic. — The two chief methods of the 
Satire. — The classical Latin Satire. — The Epigram. — Relation of the Epi- 
gram to the Satire. — The nature of burlesque. — Parody and travesty. — The 
Mock-Heroic poem ; its varieties. — The satirical Mock- Epic ; its relation to 
the Satire. — Greek burlesque. — Roman burlesque. — Medieval burlesque. — 
The Beast-Epic. — The Roman de Renart. — The Beast-Fable. — The satiric 
Allegory. — Dijfference between the Satire and all other genres. — Four varie- 
ties of the Satire. — The Personal Satire. — The Political Satire. — The Moral 
and Social Satire. — The Literary Satire ; " Parnassian " poems. — Summary. 

The story of verse-satire in England is long, for it begins 
with the twelfth century and has not yet ended. It is also a 
varied story, for not only does it cover the rise, decline, and 
fall of many a minor satirical genre, but centers as well about 
the names of great satirists who have differed widely in form, 
in subject-matter, and in spirit. Walter Map (or whoever 
may have been that " Bishop Golias " of evanescent person- 
ality), Langland (or whoever may have been the author of 
Piers Plowman), Chaucer, Skelton, and Lyndsay; Wyatt, 
Hall, and Donne ; Cleveland and Butler ; Dryden, Pope, Swift, 
Young, and Churchill ; Cowper, Canning, Gifford, and Byron 
— such are some of the great names that serve to mark the 
rise and progress of English satirical verse. 

Thus, for over seven centuries, the stream of English satire 
has been flowing with a varied course, time and time again 
deflected by cross currents from abroad. For these reasons 
and others that will appear hereafter, it is perhaps more diffi- 
cult to trace the history of the Satire than that of any other 
2 1 



poetical genre. The Ode, the Elegy, the Lyric, are far more 
limited in scope and more clearly defined. If it be admitted 
that the verse-Satire reached its full development in the work 
of Dryden, then, in order to understand this consummate prod- 
uct, we must go far back to the very beginning. Up to the 
Elizabethan era, at least, we shall find it necessary to disregard 
any strict definition of the Satire, and take into consideration 
verse that is not only largely informal, but even deficient in 
satirical quality. Furthermore, we shall constantly trespass 
on the domains of other genres, such as the didactic poem and 
the ballad. And all of this we shall find written in three lan- 
guages, Latin, English and Anglo-French, each of which 
might be termed a vernacular. While very little of this con- 
siderable medieval product conforms to any strict definition of 
the Satire, it is still significant as exhibiting tendencies that 
finally resulted in a perfect form, and that therefore deserve 
our attention, despite the difficulty of giving them consistent 
treatment. 

Again, it is not easy to see that the genre underwent any 
well-marked evolution. The term " evolution " has now be- 
come popular, and is too often loosely applied. Strictly speak- 
ing, it would scarcely be demonstrable to say that the English 
Satire is a product of distinct evolution. Still, it must be 
apparent to any student that this genre has indeed been the 
result of a long process of growth. Its three different ele- 
ments. Form, Subject-matter, and Tone, have by degrees 
gained in richness and scope as the nation has developed. The 
form has gradually grown more artistic and individual ; the 
subject-matter has become more comprehensive; the tone has 
learned to run the gamut from grave to gay, has grown more 
expressive of the individual writer, and has gained a larger 
sense of the ludicrous. 

Furthermore, any study of satirical poetry in England is at 
the very outset rendered difficult by a confusion of terms. A 
source of this confusion lies in the really triple meaning of the 
word satire. As given in the dictionary, satire, in one sense, 
is an abstract term cognate with ridicule ; as when we say, 
" Satire has accomplished revolutions." A second meaning 



refers to a literary form that has for its object destructive 
criticism, as when we say, ** Butler's Hudibras is a Satire on 
the Puritans." 

There is in this double meaning no confusion too great to 
be simplified by the mere use of a capital letter when the word 
" satire " is used to denote a literary form. But, unfortu- 
nately, a double meaning lurks in the first and more abstract 
signification of the word as given in the dictionary. Here 
two things are confused: the satirical spirit, an intangible, 
abstract something that underlies and inspires what we com- 
monly call satire — or ridicule — or invective ; and satire itself, 
which is merely the concrete manifestation of the satiric spirit 
in literature. This distinction may seem fanciful ; certainly it 
can be justified and made clear only through discussion and 
illustration. But let it be borne in mind that throughout the 
following account of the nature of satirical verse in general 
and the history of the English product in particular, the term 
satirical spirit always refers to a point of view ; the word satire 
to a concrete but general embodiment of that point of view in 
literature; and Satire (capitalized) to the literary form or 
genre, as well as to any particular example of that genre. 
Thus, we may say, " The satirical spirit is unenthusiastic " ; 
" Butler's satire is directed largely against the Puritans " ; 
" Butler made an important contribution to the Satire " ; 
^' Butler's Hudibras is a Satire in the burlesque method." 
From the double use of the capitalized form there should arise 
no ambiguity, the meaning being apparent from the context. 
In this perhaps inadequate way we shall at least have taken a 
step toward a clearer and more definite terminology. 

The confusion, however, is not merely verbal. English 
satirical poetry is not one genre alone, but is an inclusive term 
covering a number of genres more or less clearly defined. To 
be sure, the English Satire par excellence is indeed a distinct 
genre, with a form and traditions of its very own. Though 
this genre is in origin that of the classical Latin Satire, yet its 
growth and development in England from its first beginnings 
in the Satires of Sir Thomas Wyatt in 1540 to the Satires, 
say, of Gifford at the close of the eighteenth century, have 



been so definite as to justify the proposition that this particular 
form of EngHsh satirical poetry has been actually evolved. 

But aside from this, its most significant and clearly-defined 
variety, satirical verse in England includes several other varie- 
ties and schools. The Goliardic Latin satire of the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries ; the troubadour^ and trouvere product 
of the same period (the sirvente) ; the satiric Eclogue of Bar- 
clay, Googe, Spenser, and Gay; the Elizabethan and Augustan 
Epigram; the satiric Fable of Gay and of Prior; the satirical 
Mock-Heroic — all these are varieties in themselves — and all 
are satirical. Beyond these, we find schools of satiric verse: 
the Anglo-Latin Satires of the twelfth century — the work 
of Wireker and his contemporaries ; the Songs against the 
French and Scotch by English gleemen through the reigns of 
the first three Edwards ; the Lollard Satire in Latin and in 
English, pro and con, of the early fifteenth century; the alle- 
gorical Satire, from the Speculum Stultorum to the Satyre of 
the Thrie Estaitis ; the Satire on Woman ; the peculiar polit- 
ico-satirical ballads of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 
in which noblemen are referred to by their cognizances; the 
Satire of the Reformation ; the productions of Skelton and the 
Skeltonic school ; the " Fool Satire " from Wireker to Skel- 
ton ; the '' Satire on Rogues," of the early sixteenth century ; 
the satirical ballads of the Civil War and Protectorate ; the 
work of Cleveland and his imitators ; the Satires of the Hudi- 
brastic school ; and the " Parnassian Satires " of the seven- 
teenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries — from Suckling to 
Lowell. 

The rise and progress of verse-satire in England, in 
all these and other kinds, from 1200 to 1800, from Walter 
Map to Byron, is roughly divisible into five great epochs. 
The first period of development begins with Goliardic satire 
and satire in Anglo-French, and ends with the consummation of 
medieval satire in the work of Lyndsay, 1540. With the birth 
of the formal genre, in the classical Satires of Sir Thomas 
Wyatt, begins a second epoch that ends with the decadence of 

^ The troubadour sirvente was connected with the English dominion in 
France ; see infra, p. 48 f . 



this classical Satire about 1628. The satire of the Civil War 
and Protectorate, of Cleveland and Butler, marks the third 
period. A fourth begins with the revival of the Classical 
Satire by Dryden and ends with its decline in Gifford. Out 
of this fourth epoch grows a fifth, which begins with the satire 
of the Anti-Jacobin, and culminates in the masterly work of 
Byron, perhaps the greatest of English verse-satirists. 

Foreign influences, emanating chiefly from France and 
Italy, have again and again through its history affected Eng- 
lish satirical verse. The Goliardic poetry was probably a 
French importation; the sirvente was French and Norman; 
Anglo-Latin satire was perceptibly affected by the classics. 
The Roman de la Rose certainly exercised an influence upon 
Langland and Chaucer ; while the latter was clearly indebted 
to the method of the fabliau for some of his best satirical work. 
Wyatt drew from the Italians ; the Elizabethan formal satir- 
ists, from both the Italians and the classics. Butler gained at 
least his framework from Don Quixote; the great satirists of 
the Restoration and Georgian eras were profoundly influenced, 
first by Boileau, later by La Fontaine. Gifford fancied him- 
self a follower of Juvenal ; while Byron was not without his 
debt to the Italians. 

To the history of the English Satire, the present volume can 
be regarded only as introductory. For the form does not take 
shape until 1540; and we can here concern ourselves only with 
the largely formless medieval product that found its' close and 
consummation in the work of Barclay, of Skelton, and of Sir 
David Lyndsay. 

Our purpose being to treat satirical poetry as distinct from 
all other poetical forms, we must establish a certain terminol- 
ogy and certain canons of criticism whereby to determine what 
shall and what shall not be included in our treatment. It is 
possible, first, to differentiate satirical poetry from all other 
forms through the fact that it is destructive in its criticism, 
while all other forms are constructive. This peculiar and 
individual tone sets satirical poetry apart. 

But this individual tone is not alone characteristic of satire 



in verse ; it is shared by a great mass of satire in prose. We 
have, then, at the outset, four important things to do ; first, to 
ascertain the nature, the stimuli, and the working and mode 
of manifestation of the spirit that gives to this body of prose 
and verse what is called its " satirical tone " ; second, to dis- 
tinguish between prose and verse satire; third, to describe and 
illustrate the two great methods of the Satire, and to show the 
relation of the formal verse-Satire to certain kindred and also 
to certain subordinate genres ; finally, to differentiate between 
the Satire and all other genres of poetry, and to describe its 
diflFerent varieties. 

I 

In the first attempt — to ascertain the nature and the work- 
ing of the satirical spirit — ^there would be less difficulty were 
satirical literature in itself homogeneous. But apparently its 
range of tone is quite commensurate with its enormous extent. 
What, then, may be the essence of the informing spirit that 
can stamp as satire each distinct production in this great body 
of prose and verse? Surely, if the product itself is so diverse, 
the spirit animating it must be complex and multiform. 

Yet this spirit must also possess certain constant elements, 
however variable its incidental characteristics. It is possible, 
indeed, to obtain some knowledge of the nature of this satirical 
spirit, but only after forming a general idea of what may be 
included under the head of satirical literature. Then it at 
once becomes evident that, whatever its minor characteristics, 
this spirit is eternal and perennial, and has constantly found 
expression in European literature since the days of Homer. 
In order to indicate in a general way the field covered by this 
satirical product, it may be well, even at the risk of stating 
commonplaces, to make a diagram of the various forms that 
the satirical spirit assumes, giving for each form, as far as 
possible, at least one great typical example. The catalogue, 
though far from exhaustive, may still serve for illustration. 

It is easy to see the kinship between Aristophanes, Lucian, 
Ulrich von Hutten, and Rabelais ; but it is a far cry from 
Horace, Erasmus and Addison, through Dryden, Pope and 
Boileau, to Juvenal, Swift and Churchill. Yet all these, ac- 



cording to the universal verdict of criticism, are satirists. 



Prose 



Verse 



Direct 
method. 



The formal (professed) prose Satire : The Praise of Folly, by 

Erasmus. 
The Dialogue : The Dialogues of Lucian, of Ulrich von Hutten. 
The Play : The satiric prose comedies of Moliere. 
The Novel : Gulliver's Travels, by Swift. 
The Tale : Candide, by Voltaire. 
The Essay : The satiric Essays of Addison. 

The satiric Burlesque of any prose genre : The Don Quixote of 
Cervantes, the Gargantua of Rabelais (parodies of the Ro- 
mance of Chivalry) ; The Sermon Joyeux (parody of the 
Sermon). 

The formal verse-Satire : Satires of Horace, Juvenal, 

Ariosto, Boileau, Pope. 
The Epigram : The Epigrams of Martial. 
The Lampoon or Pasquinade : Lampoons by Defoe. 
The satirical Ballad and Song: The Ballads of the 
Civil War and Protectorate in England (1630- 
1660) ; the Songs of Beranger. 
The satirical Mock-Heroic : La Secchia Rapita of Tas- 
soni ; Le Lutrin of Boileau ; Hudibras of Butler ; 
Don Juan of Byron. 
The satiric Tale: The satiric Fabliau; Chaucer's 

Friar's Tale. 
The Beast-Epic : Roman de Renart. 
The satiric Play •? The Plays of Aristophanes ; The 

Alchemist of Ben Jonson. 
The satiric Fable : Fables of Marie de France ; Fables 

of LaFontaine ; Fables of Gay, of Prior, etc. 
The satiric Burlesque of any poetic genre: (Parody) 
The Morgante Maggiore of Pulci ; (Travesty) The 
Virgile Travesti of Scarron. 

What, then, is this satirical spirit that is said to bring all these 
great writers under the same category? Is it not, in the first 
place, as we have said, essentially the spirit of adverse or nega- 
tive criticism, the spirit that prompts attack? Negative crit- 
icism destroys. Yet this, if the chief and essential quality of 
the satirical spirit, is still but one of its elements, and varies 
greatly in degree. Alone, it would not form the satirical spirit 
in its entirety. Negative criticism unalloyed may produce in- 

* The German Fastnachtspiel, though embodying much incidental satire, 
can scarcely be termed a satiric genre (see Creizenach, Geschichte des 
neueren Dramas, 1, 416-420). The French Farce and Sottie, though often 
dealing in very effective satire, are, as genres, humorous rather than satirical 
(see Creizenach, I, 439-442 ; Lenient, La Satire en France au Moyen Age, 
ch. XXII). 



Indirect 
method. 



8 

vectives, sermons, didacticism in many forms, but not satire. 
The truly satirical spirit includes other elements that vary in 
degree with the individual satirist ; for the satirical method 
of Horace is not that of Swift ; and that of Byron or of Berni 
is not that of Juvenal. These other elements consist, on the 
part of the satirist, in a sense of superiority, a sense of the 
ludicrous, a tendency towards exaggeration, and a reformatory 
purpose. 

The critical spirit implies a feeling of superiority, which, as 
the concomitant of adverse criticism, is always in some degree 
present in satire, but increases as the criticism grows more 
bitter, e. g., from Horace to Juvenal. It is found even in 
Horace, who delighted to include himself among the objects 
of his own ridicule. And such an attitude is possible, for the 
personality in these cases is objectified, and the Satirist be- 
comes superior to the Man. 

Since the spirit of satire is negatively critical, the tendency 
of satire is of course destructive. It always attacks to destroy, 
not, primarily, to reform the object of its criticism. Still, 
though there is little expression of reformatory purpose in 
ideal satire, the satirical spirit must by implication construct 
where it has torn down ; but not avowedly, else the satire drifts 
into mere didacticism. From this the truly satirical spirit is 
distinguished not only by its destructive tendency but also by 
its sense of the ludicrous. The destructive element it has in 
common with invective. But pure invective is totally lacking 
in humor, which presupposes sympathy either real or assumed. 
Humor the satirical spirit has in common with the mighty 
mass of purely uncritical humorous literature, the aim of which 
is only to amuse and the method of which is positive; and 
though, in its simpler manifestations, the satirical spirit may be 
identical with pure humor in so far as humor depends on the 
perception of incongruities, it is dissimilar in that it must attack 
these absurdities made evident by humor and reduce them to 
harmony. Obviously, humor and the satirical spirit grow more 
and more unlike as the latter becomes increasingly antagonis- 
tic and bitter and loses the mere sense of amusement in a feel- 
ing of indignation. 



There are certain elements of the satirical spirit that must 
vary in inverse ratio to one another. Even the spirit of cen- 
sure that prompts adverse criticism, though ever-present, is a 
variable element in that it grows more pronounced as the satir- 
ist becomes more earnest and indignant. Though essentially 
unsympathetic, yet in its lighter moods the satirical spirit may 
be tempered by humor, which is thoroughly sympathetic, or by 
a sense of contemptuous pity, which is partially so. But these 
qualities are eliminated, as the criticism, at first leavened by 
a large sense of genuine amusement, passes through the inter- 
mediate stages of a more stringent, less sympathetic criticism, 
and finally becomes direct and severe rebuke, unmitigated by 
any sense of the ludicrous. What was at first mild and even 
laughing criticism, has become bitter invective; what was 
amusement, has become unspeakable contempt and scornful 
disgust. In its more genial manifestation, the satirical spirit 
worked to make its object merely ridiculous ; finally, it strives 
to render its object absolutely loathsome. Thus, as the ad- 
verse criticism grows more severe, the sense of humor de- 
creases, and at once with this decline of sympathy, the earlier 
and more kindly attributes yield to scorn and contempt, though 
the moral earnestness apparently gains in depth. 

The tendency toward exaggeration that marks every mani- 
festation of the satirical spirit is perhaps rather a result of 
its working than an essential quality of its being. And yet 
exaggeration is so omnipresent in satire that it is easy to re- 
gard it merely as a varying element of the satiric spirit itself. 
Undoubtedly it often results from the satirist's desire to 
heighten the effect of those incongruities which he professes 
to feel so keenly. This, of course, is that conscious method 
of which Horace is an excellent exemplar. If, on the other 
hand, the exaggeration is unconscious and inevitable, it must 
result from some exaggerated — i. e., distorted — view of life 
on the part of a satirist who does not " see life steadily and 
see it whole." Such a satirist narrows his vision down to the 
objects of his attack, removes these from their surroundings, 
fails to see them in their right relations, and exaggerates their 
importance. Of this class were Juvenal and Swift. 



10 

But this tendency toward exaggeration is not the only qual- 
ity of the satirical spirit that is but questionably an essential 
attribute. A certain stock definition of the Satire invariably 
refers to its "reformatory purpose."^ This seems highly 
questionable. The desire to reform is rather an incidental 
than an essential quality. Half of the satire in literature has 
sprung from no apparent reformatory purpose, though such 
a spirit has undoubtedly inspired some of the world's greatest 
satirical masterpieces. The satirist may not be animated by 
any such high motive, as we shall see later. It is true that 
the result of all genuine satire would inevitably be reforma- 
tory, irrespective of the author's motive, were the condition 
surrounding its reception entirely favorable to that end. So- 
cial satire, for instance, reforms only when it gives expression 
to a popular desire for reform — in other words, when the satir- 
ist is merely, consciously or unconsciously, the people's voice 
in some great movement. This spirit of reform may utilize 
satirical genius, but so also may the spirit of pure malice. 
These, of course, are the two extremes. But granting that 
in many cases the reformatory purpose is predominant, this 
spirit seems to increase with the earnestness and vigor of the 
criticism. Yet not necessarily so, for certainly some of the 
milder satirists, such as Erasmus and Addison, were actuated 
by this high motive; and many of the most severe, as Swift, 
Churchill and Oldham, seem to have been inspired more by 
malice than by any desire to reform. 

So much for the elements of the satirical spirit, whether 
essential or incidental, variable or constant. 

We must not confuse the elements of the satirical spirit 
with those stimuli which are external to it. These stimuli are 
furnished, first, by a sense of incongruity, inconsistency, and 
excess, either general or personal, in the social, political, and 
literary worlds ; and, secondly, by a sense of injury, or a feel- 
ing of dislike or hatred toward an individual, institution, or 
class. The first cause results in the more general, the second 

* Stock phrases of this character are usually immature generalizations 
from a few standard examples — principally those furnished by the classical 
Latin Satire ; e. g., Juvenal's Satires, VIII and XIV. 



11 

in the more personal, satire ; but the former produces perhaps 
the more typical variety, as personal satire too easily degener- 
ates into invective. Obviously, we find at times these stimuli 
working together so closely that it is impossible to say which 
preponderates. The animus itself may have been somewhat 
malicious and personal, and yet, as in Dryden's Mac Flecknoe, 
the resulting satire may be that of the higher and more gen- 
eral order. 

A discussion of these external stimuli forms a natural con- 
nection between that consideration of the essential nature of 
the satirical spirit which has already been undertaken, and 
some discussion of the instruments or weapons through which 
that spirit works and manifests itself in literature. 

It is obvious that as the satirical spirit grows more intense, 
its instruments must change accordingly. There is, to be 
sure, no sharp line of demarcation as the tone changes. One 
satirist alone may in turn use many weapons. Even Horace 
does not confine himself to lightest raillery; no more does 
Juvenal always fight by means of bitter invective. Still, it is 
safe to say that the weapons employed by a satirist of the 
milder type are sharper and lighter, though not necessarily 
less effective, than those used by satirists of the more severe 
order. Light raillery, slight exaggeration, an abundant sense 
of the ludicrous, playful wit, and a certain amount of gentle 
sarcasm, are characteristic of all so-called " Horatian " satire. 
As we pass through the second class, of which Dryden and 
Pope are good exemplars, the light and even laughing raillery 
is lost, and the humor decreases, though the wit is constant; 
the exaggeration is greater, the sarcasm grows more cutting, 
and the ridicule more obvious. When we reach the third class, 
that of Juvenal, of Swift, and of Gifford, the sarcasm is most 
bitter, the ridicule, if there be laughter at all, is unspeakably 
scornful, humor has been mainly displaced by invective; and, 
finally, gross exaggeration is everywhere evident. 

We have seen that the satirical spirit, using these weapons, 
finds expression in a vast literature. Its perennial life has 
been apparent in European literature, at least, since the days 
of Archilochus — or perhaps Homer. Its expression may be 



12 

thoroughly unliterary, but still very much alive. It may per- 
sist in this form from the Fescennine verses of the Romans 
down to the modern political street-song; it may occur in the 
popular Ballad, and in almost any literary form of the Middle 
Ages. It may seek formal expression in the Satire proper, 
the Epigram, the Burlesque, even in the prose Fable, and may 
find less formal expression in any genre of both prose and 
verse ; — in prose, the Play, the Novel, the Essay ; in verse, epic, 
lyric, and dramatic poetry in all their sub-varieties of Ode, 
Sonnet, Elegy, Verse-Fable, Epistle, and the rest. 

The Satire, then, never really dies, but changes shape, when 
it 'rises into literature, and adapts itself to prevailing genres. 
Both formal and popular satire are animated by the same 
spirit, but the Satire assumes superior form and becomes lit- 
erature under the same conditions that affect the state of liter- 
ature in general ; and this is true, although in certain epochs 
when highly imaginative literature is eclipsed, the purely clas- 
sical Satire flourishes. Such was the case in the so-called 
" Augustan Age " of English literature. By this time the for- 
mal Satire had been completely evolved, and can be considered 
as an independent product. But up to this period — the period 
of Dryden and of Pope — the unliterary satire, including all 
that immeasurable mass of prose and verse making no preten- 
sion to literary worth, often showed a tendency or in some 
way affected the purely literary product. Such was un- 
doubtedly true of the verse-satire of the early and middle 
seventeenth century in England. Hence, until the time of 
Dryden, any consideration of formal satire in England must 
be supplemented by some reference to the unliterary product 
with which it was so closely allied. 

We have attempted in the preceding pages to determine the 
nature and the working of the spirit that gives a distinguishing 
tone to the great mass of literature we term " satirical." Now 
we can undertake some differentiation between the part of that 
satirical literature which is written in prose and the part which 
is written in verse. 



13 

II 

When we consider the formal Satire, we find the broad 
division into prose and verse-satire most convenient. Prose- 
satire divides itself into two great groups : first, the medita- 
tive Satire in essay form, with its variations ; and, secondly, 
the imaginative and creative forms, such as the Dialogue, Play, 
Tale, and Novel. Under verse-satire we find, first, the clas- 
sical Satire, meditative and realistic ; secondly, burlesque poetry, 
including every form of parody and travesty. 

Satire in prose is almost incapable of classification, as it is 
Protean in its shape, and invades the domain of many genres. 
The professed or " formal " Satire in prose, such as The Praise 
of Folly of Erasmus, is rare. Prose-satire has in the main 
proved ineffective except when disguised,* But under the dis- 
guise of other genres it has, for obvious reasons, made a much 
wider and more effective appeal than the Satire in verse. Its 
material is of far greater scope, and includes not only the 
vagaries and follies of the upper classes, which have proved 
so prolific a source of material to the verse-satirist, but also 
embraces all the varied interests of human society. The prose- 
Satire, too, has been more polemic, more reformatory in its 
purpose, and more efficient in working out its reformation. 
It has made a more popular appeal by means of more popular 
material and a more popular style. It is the Satire of action 
rather than of reflection, aimed at society at large rather than at 
classes. Its form is less restricted by precedent than that of 
the Satire in verse, which consciously follows literary models 
and has its tone, form, and choice of material more or less 
influenced by such precedent. This distinction, however, 
would apply rather to the classical Satire and classical Mock- 
Epic than to burlesque verse-satire, which in material and 
method approaches more nearly the scope and power of the 
prose Satire. Both in literature and in life prose-satire has 
played the larger part. In addition to its greater scope of 
material, it has offered a wider field to the imagination through 

* Even The Praise of Folly, since its method is really indirect, wears a 
thin disguise. The piece is in truth a glorified sermon joyeux, and thor- 
oughly ironical. 



14 

its freedom from metrical restrictions. Lucian, Erasmus, 
Ulrich von Hutten, Fischart, Rabelais, Cervantes, De Foe, 
Swift,'' Voltaire, are perhaps the greatest names in prose- 
satire, though in different spheres. To equal these in creative 
genius, verse-satire has scarcely a name to offer except that 
of Aristophanes. 

For the satirical spirit is anything but idealistic in its treat- 
ment — it is realistic; it deals, in the main, with sordid aspects 
of life and character, not with those higher and more beauti- 
ful phases with which pure poetry concerns itself. Hence this 
spirit finds its natural expression in prose. Certainly there are 
cases in which this very material has been transmuted into 
something truly poetical by the force of the satirist's emotions. 
The satires of Juvenal at times exemplify this fact; and in 
Mac Flecknoe Dryden has actually raised his Shadwell into 
something universal and poetical. But, in the main, it must 
be acknowledged that the Satire in verse is not essentially 
poetry. The satirist is scarcely animated by emotions " that 
voluntary move harmonious numbers." When he has written 
in verse, from Horace to Pope, he has chosen this method of 
expression on account of its conciseness and its opportunity 
for epigrammatic point. But this choice has determined the 
form of what we call preeminently The Satire. 

Now that we have ascertained the nature and the working 
of the satirical spirit, and have distinguished between satire 
in verse and satire in prose, we can proceed to carry out the 
third part of the program outlined on page 6. This leads 
first to some discussion of the two chief methods employed 
by the verse-Satire. 

Ill 

The verse-Satire, whether the form be that of Horace or 
that of Butler and of Byron, has in general two methods of 
expression: the direct, and the indirect or dramatic. These 
two methods are fundamentally distinct and usually exist sepa- 
rately, but, as may appear later, are occasionally found in com- 

"The satiric pamphlet of the early eighteenth century in England, han- 
dled so brilliantly by Defoe and Swift, furnishes perhaps the best examples 
of effective prose-satire in our literature. 



15 

bination. The direct method is that of the pulpit — hortatory, 
reflective, expository, didactic. Possibly this was the earlier 
method, for satire in its origin was certainly largely personal. 
In pure literature the classical Latin type is the chief exponent 
of this direct method. 

The development — or evolution — of the Latin Satire, from 
its faint beginnings in Ennius, through its treatment by Lucil- 
ius, to its perfect form in Horace, Persius, and Juvenal, has 
been traced so often and so thoroughly that there is here no 
need of such a history. What remains to be done is to treat 
specifically the exact form of this Latin Satire in its Roman 
period, and to determine the influence of Horace, Persius, and 
Juvenal upon the formal English Satire of the Elizabethan 
and Augustan eras. Such a treatment, however, would be 
out of place in a work that ends its study with the year 1540, 
at the very appearance of the classical Satire in England. 
Still, in order clearly to show how utterly the medieval Eng- 
lish satirical poetry differs from this classical product, we must 
here attempt a general characterization of that very clearly 
defined and formal genre, the classical Latin Satire. 

The Satire of Horace, Persius, and Juvenal was as separate 
and distinct a literary genre as any in literature. Though 
running a certain gamut in tone and even undergoing certain 
changes of form from Lucilius, through Horace and Persius, 
to Juvenal, it still retained its unique character. It was clear- 
cut, definite, precise. Hence, despite these changes of form 
and tone, it may still be possible to frame some comprehensive 
description that shall serve as a test for any imitations of this 
type: 

The classical Satire is written in a dignified and uniform 
meter, and, at its longest, is a comparatively short poem. It 
is not characterized by any fixed organism, but is remarkable 
for an extent of ideas which somewhat compensates for this 
lack of definite structure. It may utilize various methods of 
expression, such as those of direct address, narrative, or dia- 
logue; but remains largely a subjective poem depending 
for its formal details entirely on the personality of the 
individual satirist. Thus it drifts naturally into self-reve- 



16 

lation. It deals largely in personalities to illustrate its 
teachings. Its purpose is mainly that of destructive criti- 
cism, — the objects of its attack range from the smallest 
breach of good-taste in the social or the literary worlds 
to the grossest crime against morality; and its weapons, 
consonant with its subject-matter, vary from the lightest rail- 
lery to the bitterest invective. Finally, this classical Satire is 
purely formal and arises from the writer's reflective turn of 
mind rather than from any polemic or reformatory motive. 
Its emphasis is entirely on private evils and it is devoid of 
political or distinctly religious coloring. 

This same classical species has appeared again and again, 
since the beginning of the Renaissance, in Italy, Spain, France, 
England, and Germany. It has always risen as the work of 
scholarly, or would-be scholarly, poets, under direct classical 
influence. Often dry, pedantic, and dull, but still occasionally 
with something of native flavor and force, it rises at its be^t 
into the inimitable work of Boileau and of Pope. This type, 
which above all others deserves to be called the Satire, is 
easily recognized. Its range is limited, and of all genres it is 
perhaps the most self-conscious and purely formal. Arising' 
in England with Wyatt,^ it was later utilized by Hall, Donne, 
and others ; again in a more favorable age by Pope and Young, 
and finally by Gifford. It is significant that the classical 
Satire adopts the great national verse of its vernacular and 
rarely appears in any other form : in Italy and Spain, the 
terza-rima ; in France, the Alexandrine ; in England, the heroic 
couplet. 

Just here it may be well to notice briefly a genre, by modern 
consensus termed satirical, which has always closely associated 
itself with the formal Satire, and which by preference em- 
ploys the direct method. This genre is the Epigram. Des- 
pite innumerable popular articles on the subject, there yet 
remains to be written a thorough and consistent treatment of 
the history of this most variable and ill-defined form. The 
Greek epigram was not often satirical — though among the 

' See infra, p. 22y. 



17 

later epigrams of the Anthology occur a few — ^by Lucian, 
Lucilius, and others — that point the way toward Martial. The 
Latin Martial, epigrammatist par excellence of all literature, 
was, though satirist by preference, yet not always satirical. 
In his case it was perhaps rather the nature of the writer than 
the demands of the literary form that made his epigrams 
satirical. Martial's influence, however, pervading all the sub- 
sequent history of the genre, has practically identified the Epi- 
gram with satire. The medieval Latin epigrammatists were 
his followers — Godfrey of Winchester and Henry of Hunt- 
ingdon'^ among the English writers, for instance ; and so were 
the Latin epigrammatists of the Renaissance, such as Bembo, 
Scaliger, Buchanan, and More. In English, came the vast 
flood of Martialian epigrams in the time of Elizabeth, begin- 
ning with those of John Heywood, and in a later period the 
golden age of the English epigram under the seventeenth- 
century poets, with Pope at their head. The Epigram of Ben 
Jonson — Greek rather than Martialian — differs so widely from 
that of Pope, for instance, that it would seem impossible to 
obtain any satisfactory description of a genre including prod- 
ucts so diverse. For the Greek epigram meant almost any- 
thing — a short poem on an occasion, real or supposed — verse, 
style, matter, tone, varying ad libitum. The epigram of Mar- 
tial and his imitators is usually satirical in intent, but differs 
from the Satire in something more fundamental than in length. 
For the typical satirical epigram must be not only compara- 
tively short, but complete; not only witty, but concrete) not 
general, but specific, occasional. Moreover, it gives but one 
glimpse, one side, of the object attacked. Such is the truly 
satirical Epigram through all its history, from Catullus down 
to the present day. 

What is the chronological place of the Epigram in English 
satire? Except for the school of Anglo-Latin satirists of the 
eleventh and twelfth centuries, no place at all until the Renais- 
sance, and then no place as a vernacular form until the Eliza- 
bethans. When the Epigram assumes the rank of a leading 

^ Not treated in the present volume ; their Epigrams, scholarly imitations 
of those of Martial, form " an isolated phenomenon." 



18 

genre and vies with the Satire itself in depicting contemporary 
manners, a fuller treatment of its nature and history will be 
necessary. In the history of English literature, such is not 
the case until the age of Elizabeth. 

The purely classical variety of the Satire, interesting and 
important as it is, has yet never been the prevailing, most 
characteristic, or most effective type of its own genre. The 
narrative burlesque of Italy and the Mock-Epic have prepon- 
derated. Almost all of the great satire in Italian literature 
employs the indirect method of pure burlesque. Indeed, the 
second great method employed by the Satire — the method that 
has already been termed indirect or dramatic — is chiefly exem- 
plified by Burlesque. 

Burlesque is either pictorial or literary. The pictorial bur- 
lesque — called caricature — consists in the selection of charac- 
teristic features of an original and the exaggeration of those 
features with ludicrous effect. When this exaggeration tran- 
scends the bounds of the possible, the burlesque passes into 
grotesque caricature. The difference is one of degree, not 
of kind.^ So it is with the literary burlesque, which is also 
essentially caricature. The grotesque in literature is the 
further exaggeration of the burlesque. The motive remains 
the same : the grotesque Satire is the burlesque Satire carried 
into the realm of the impossible.® 

The grotesque has found its highest expression in prose. 
Its masters have been such writers as Rabelais, Fischart, and 
Swift. In poetry it appears in the mock-heroic Orlandino and 
Maccaronea of the Italian, Teofilo Folengo, parodist of Ari- 
osto (1491-1544) ; and in the Morgante Maggiore of Pulci 
(1432-1487). The grotesque has not flourished in English 
poetry, though traces of it appear in Butler's Hudibras; but 
the burlesque poem is splendidly exemplified by the work of 
Dryden, of Pope, and of Byron. The English comic imagina- 
tion, with the exception of Swift, who was of the train of 
Aristophanes and Rabelais, has not achieved that broad gro- 

* See Schneegans, Geschichte der Grotesken Satire, p. 46. 

* Ibid., Einleitung, p. ^Z- 



19 

tesque style so loved and so magnificently handled by the great 
continental masters. This grotesque method has always car- 
ried with it a certain peculiar style, free from restraint, often 
gross, shaking with large laughter. The grotesque writer 
laughs at conventionalities ; his colossal figures stride easily 
over these petty things ; his style runs past restraint. An Eng- 
lishman like Swift achieves it; other Englishmen have been 
incapable of it. 

Instead of the open rebuke and immediate attack of the 
direct satirist, the burlesque writer, not necessarily less earnest 
and determined, works more effectually by means of irony.^** 
For, in such a case, the contrast between the satirist's ethical 
ideal (Ethos) and the picture he paints is complete and con- 
vincing.^^ Again the method of the stage asserts its general 
superiority ; for, as the burlesque approaches dramatic form in 
speech and action, it undoubtedly gains in power and effective- 
ness. It leaves farther behind the method of the pulpit, and 
adopts that of the stage, its home. 

In respect to form, burlesque poetry is roughly divisible into 
travesty and parody. 

The travesty is a comparatively rare variety, for its range 
of subject-matter and form are limited. It consists in the 
degradation of elevated material through inferior form.^^ 
This subject-matter of the poetic travesty has usually been 
drawn from various mythologies ; not invariably, however, for 
any superior material, ideas, institutions, and so on, may be 
travestied. In the mythological world, Scarron's travesty of 
the u^neid is perhaps the most famous and successful of its 
kind.- Of this kind English literature has a host of examples 
— " Scarronides," " Homerides," etc., which vary from mere 
insipidity to rank vulgarity, but agree in their common lack of 
literary merit. The usual satirical range of the travesty is 
narrow ; but for Scarron's satire there was ample scope : at 
the court of Louis XIV the sublime grew irksome. The great 
Greek satirist Lucian (c. 165 A. D.), and his imitator, the 

^" See Schneegans, p, 495. 
^^ Ibid., p. 495. 

^^ The travesty occurs very rarely in England before the Renaissance ; 
but is exemplified in On the Council of London; see infra, p. 87. 



20 

German humanist and reformer, Ulrich von Hutten (1520), 
though writing in prose, used the travesty as a most effective 
vehicle for satire. Yet, in the main, humanity prefers that 
the truly sublime remain on its lofty pedestal ; hence the use 
of the travesty for satirical purposes has never been very gen- 
eral or successful. ^^ 

The parody,^* more frequently encountered, is the reverse 
of the travesty. It consists in the use of dignified form for 
inferior material, with intentionally burlesque effect.^^ Every 
poetic species, from the Epic to the Sonnet, suffers this pa- 
rodic ridicule. The burlesque may be intended to degrade 
the form merely, to render the subject-matter ridiculous, or 
to effect both purposes at once. The first purpose is illustrated 
by the Batrachomyomachia ; the second by Pope's Diinciad ; 
both together by La Secchia Rapita of the Italian poet Tassoni. 

Parody of the form usually follows the decadence or the 
abuse of any poetical genre ; such as, in Italy, the Sonnet in 
the sixteenth,^^ and the Epic in the seventeenth, century. This 
is well illustrated by the burlesque Sonnets of Francesco Cop- 
petta (1510-1554), who parodied Petrarch; and the Mock- 
Epics of Teofilo Folengo and of Tassoni, who ridiculed the 
Epic poets. Such, also, are the parodies of the Fable, Elegy, 
and Eclogue, in the England of Pope, w^hen a great mass of 
parodies, mainly in ridicule of the form, marks the exaggera- 
ated use of each of these genres in the early eighteenth cen- 
tury. These parodies appear at their best in the work of John 
Gay ( 1 688-1 732), such as The Shepherd's Week and Town 
Eclogues, parodies of the Pastoral ; Trivia, in ridicule of the 

" For an interesting account of the travesty with ample illustration, see 
Babuder, L'Eroicomica e Generi Affini di Poesia Giocosa-Satirica, p. 36 f. 

" Parody is here used in its narrow sense as the burlesque of a literary 
form. Burlesque has another species of parody — that of ideas, habits of 
thought, speech, action, — which is broader and more significant. 

^' Wireker's Speculum Stultorum may be termed a parody ; see infra, p. 43. 

^® Other poets who used the sonnet for satirical purposes, but perhaps not 
in parody of the form, were Domenico Burchiello (1400-48) ; Francesco 
Berni (1497-1535), who used the form for violent personal satire, as did 
Matteo Franco, his contemporary, who wrote two hundred and eighteen 
Sonnets against Aretino ! Another contemporary, Pulci, follows the tradi- 
tion of Burchiello. To parallel these, we have in Spanish literature the 
burlesque Sonnets of Gongora (d. 1626). 



21 

prevailing didactic poetry; Elegy on a Lap-Dog; parody of 
the Elegy ; and the Satirical Fables}'' 

The double purpose of ridiculing both form and matter is 
illustrated by Canning's famous Knife-Grinder (1797)/^ in 
which Southey's dignified sapphics are rendered absurd, and 
the material is in its turn satirized through the superior form 
it is made to assume. 

From all this it should be evident that the satirical spirit 
may so utilize any poetical form that the piece practically be- 
comes a Satire. Still these formal parodies are complex in 
their nature, for they share the characteristics of another 
genre — the genre that they parody. The result is satire in 
the form of an elegy, an ode, a sonnet, etc. ; and though many 
a one of these is purely satirical, yet to avoid confusion, it is 
better to admit that each genre has its mock- or parodic- 
variety, which may be used for satirical purposes, but does not 
rise into formal satire. Thus may be treated a great mass of 
confusing material that would highly complicate any attempt 
to differentiate the Satire from other genres of poetry. 

But that parody on the epic genre that is called the Mock- 
Epic is a genre in itself. Its dignity is far greater than that 
of any other parody, and it occasionally rises to the height of 
creative literature. It has existed side by side with the epic 
since the days of the imitators of Homer. The exalted char- 
acter of the epic form in burlesque affords the best imaginable 
contrast between manner and matter; and hence the poetical 
burlesque is here at its best — either in the true Mock-Epic or 
in the narrative burlesque poem of the Italian school. These 
two varieties constitute what is loosely called the Mock-Epic, 
but more correctly the mock-heroic poem in general. 

The mock-heroic poem is a parodic form and may well be 
treated under the present head. Its first variety, the true 
Mock-Epic, is in itself of varied character, yet is always a 
parody of the epic form, whether its original be the epic of 

" Further illustrations are furnished by the Art of Love and Art of 
Cookery, of William King (1663-1712) ; and Art of Preaching, by Christo- 
pher Pitt (1699-1748). 

^Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, ed, Edmonds (1890). 



22 

Homer or of Ariosto. However, the truly classical Mock- 
Epic, such as The Dunciad of Pope, has been the chief Eng- 
lish type. A second variety is that of the burlesque narrative 
poem of Italian origin — an admirable vehicle for satire. Of 
this type, Byron's Don Juan is perhaps the greatest English 
example. Butler's Hiidihras, though vastly different from 
Don Juan in character and in origin, is also to be classed here. 
In these narrative burlesques, not epic in the strictest sense, 
the indirect method is frequently exchanged for the direct, 
the narrative framework is forgotten, and the satirist speaks 
in propria persona. Such is rarely the case in the true Mock- 
Epic. 

All mock-heroic poems fall into two general classes : those 
written primarily to amuse, in which satire is merely inciden- 
tal ; and those which are primarily satirical, and claim the rank 
of professed Satires. The first class would include such 
poems as Boileau's Le Lutrin and Pope's The Rape of the 
Lock. The second, and far more comprehensive, class would 
include, in English literature alone. Pope's Dunciad, Cam- 
bridge's Scrihhleriad, Dryden's Mac Flecknoe, and Byron's 
Vision of Judgment. 

We are concerned, however, only with those mock-heroic 
poems that are professedly satirical. Of these, those that are 
mock-epic are parodies of the epic form; while the mere nar- 
rative burlesques are parodies of the heroic narrative poem or 
" metrical romance." Hence consistency requires that this 
satirical and mock-heroic poetry, in so far as it is actually 
parody and therefore complex in its formal nature, should be 
treated as the parodies of the minor poetical genres, and de- 
clared outside the pale of the Satire. But the Satire has 
adopted this mock-heroic form as its own in a sense in which 
it has accepted no other parodic form, and made it the prin- 
cipal vehicle for the indirect method. As has been said, the 
length and general dignity of the mock-heroic differentiate it 
from other and less pretentious parodies and render it a dis- 
tinct genre. Finally, an excellent argument lies in the fact 
that to exclude the mock-heroic poem would be to refuse rec- 



23 

ognition to some of the greatest of our English Satires, such 
as Mac Flecknoe, Hudihras, and Don Juan. 

This burlesque treatment is no new method. If we con- 
sider the classical Latin Satire alone, which has been taken 
as a model of the direct method, we find it but a step from 
Horace's Appian Bore^^ and Juvenal's Domitian and the 
Mighty Turbot,^*^ to the more elaborate and conscious exag- 
geration of the pure burlesque. The germ, the possibility, 
lives even in the Latin Satire. But its origin is still more 
remote than this. To find how ancient the burlesque method 
is, and how the mock-heroic particularly has served as a 
vehicle for satire, we must go back to the Greeks, who utilized 
the burlesque centuries before Lucilius became the first great 
exponent of the direct method. 

Among the Greeks the satirical spirit undoubtedly found its 
first literary expression in burlesque. The direct and personal 
Satires of Archilochus, Hipponax, and Simonides of Amorgos, 
came later. They were never the typical Greek form, if ever 
they rose into sufficient dignity of length and tone to be con- 
sidered as Satires. Whatever may have been the exact form 
and content of the Homeric Margites (700 B. C. [ ?] ), it was 
very probably a burlesque Satire — " the first Dunciad," Flogel 
calls it, with apparent propriety. ^^ This same epic form was 
assumed later by the pseudo-Homeric Mock-Epic, the Batrach- 
omyomachia (150 B. C. [?]), which ridicules the Epic by 
making frogs and mice engage in mighty combat in the true 
heroic manner. 

Parodies and travesties seem to have been numerous. 
Hegemo Thasius, who lived during the Peloponnesian war, 
burlesqued the Sicilian expedition. Eubeus of Faros, a con- 
temporary of Philip of Macedon, wrote four books of parodies 
on the Homeric war. All these are of course in epic style. 
The dramatic burlesque was represented in the plays of the 
earlier comic dramatists. Epicharmus the Sicilian (470 B. C.) 
described the nuptials of Hercules and Hebe in travesty ; and 

" Horace, Ser. I, IX. 

^ Juvenal, Sat. IV. 

^ See Flogel, Geschichte der komischen Litteratur, Vol. I, p. 345. 



24 

Cratinus (423 B. C.) travestied the intrigues of Zeus and 
Leda.^^ In The Frogs of Aristophanes we have both parody 
and travesty; the former in the hterary satire on the work of 
Euripides; the latter in the burlesque representation of gods 
and heroes. 

Later, during the Alexandrian decline, come the famous 
sun, of which the two most distinguished writers were 
Xenophanes of Colophon and Timon of Phlius (c. 300 B. C). 
From the few fragments of the Silli that have come down to 
us we judge them to have been parodic poems, in which the 
heroic verses of great poets were perverted to satirize current 
philosophical dogmas.^^ 

From these typical illustrations it is evident that Greek satire 
mainly employed the method of burlesque, and particularly of 
parody. Aristophanes occasionally uses the formal parody, but 
he prefers that more subtle and effective parodic method that 
does not necessarily parody the literary form of an original, but 
burlesques the habits of thought and speech of the object to 
be satirized. It caricatures so effectually that the satire be- 
comes immediately apparent, and the thought and action satir- 
ized become their own refutation. This form of parody is 
that characteristic of the stage in all ages, and renders the 
satiric comedy from Aristophanes, through Moliere, to the 
present day, the most effective vehicle for satire.^* When 
great imaginative genius speaks in satire it utilizes this dra- 
matic method. ^^ The formal Satire after the classical Latin 
type, which satirizes existing social conditions, seems never 
truly to flourish in a great creative age; for in such an age, 
satire speaks through the drama or by the general dramatic 
method. When Aristophanes spoke from the stage, no work 
was left to be done by the formal satirist of the classical Latin 
type. This formal Satire, however, may not necessarily be 
the product of a society thoroughly settled and apparently 
immutable. We notice that Juvenal, who feels himself writing 

^ See Babuder, pp. 6, 7. 

^ See Miiller and Donaldson, History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, 
Vol. 2, pp. 462-3. 

^ Cf, infra, p. 220. 

^ In England, for example, the satirical comedies of Ben Jonson. Cf. 
infra, p. 220. 



25 

in an age of decay, makes his whole protest against the pass- 
ing of the old, and what he affirms to be the better, order. 
But such a school of satire is certainly, at its best, the product 
of a non-dramatic period. Greek society could have furnished 
ample material for the Horatian Satire. For this, on the one 
hand, the age of Aristophanes was not too troublous, nor 
society too homogeneous on the other. But the imaginative 
genius of this period found its expression in the drama — from 
the tragedies of ^schylus to the satiric comedy of Aristopha- 
nes and, later, of Menander. 

From the Margites to the Silli, we may infer the broad scope 
of Greek satire, with its literary, social, personal, and political 
elements. It was epic in the Margites and Batrachomyoma- 
chia ; lyric in the personal invective Satires of the Archilochian 
school; dramatic in the plays of Aristophanes; didactic in the 
Sillif^ but, excepting the lyrical satire, always in some form 
of burlesque, and chiefly that of parody, either of form or of 
subject-matter. 

While the Old Comedy of the Greeks may have influenced 
Lucilius and have given a dramatic touch to the work of 
Horace, yet, in the main, Greek satire was without influence 
on the Romans. The burlesque and indirect method of the 
Greeks was quite distinct from the direct and individual satire 
of the Latin writers. Very little of this burlesque satire sur- 
vived till the Renaissance, and the Latin type became the 
model for extensive imitation. 

The burlesque method, however, is perennial. It was 
largely prevalent in the Middle Ages, when some of the Greek 
burlesque satire was paralleled — though without a trace of 
classical influence. At this period parody was frequent, and 
obeyed the law of its being in satirizing the prevailing genres. 
Parodies of the Chansons des Gestes were abundant.^^ One 
mock-heroic parody of the Romance of Chivalry satirized the 
Flemish burgers.^^ Another, one of the Dit d'aventures, of 

^ See Flogel, 2, 17 f. 

^ See Lenient, La Satire en France au Moyen Age, Ch. VII. 

® Schneegans, p. 88. 



26 

the thirteenth century, is a grotesque Satire on the romance of 
adventure;-^ and Chaucer's own Sir Thopas^^ is of this type. 

Here, too, must at least be mentioned the Beast-Epic of the 
Middle Ages — a form which, if not truly parodic in its nature, 
employs the indirect satirical method, and so connects itself 
with the satiric allegory and the mock-heroic. This, one of 
the most important and characteristic satirical forms of the 
Middle Ages, rises at its best into the vast Roman de Renart, 
in which, with its companion pieces, is concentrated the satirical 
genius of its age. In its allegorical form this beast-epic prob- 
ably satirizes feudal society, and so is closely connected with 
the supposedly satiric beast-fables, such as those of Marie de 
France. Concerning the satirical import of the Roman de 
Renart and its analogues, various opinions are advanced — 
some critics even maintaining that the story has no double 
meaning at all. The weight of opinion, however, distinctly 
favors the affirmative.^^ 

The Roman de Renart is not a mock-heroic in the ordinary 
sense, nor is it truly parodic, since it is quite innocent of any 
attempt to ridicule the epic genre. This fact, as well as its 
allegoric form, sharply differentiate it from the Batrochomyo- 
machia, which, though a beast-epic, has no double meaning. 
The Roman, finally, with its series of disconnected adventures, 
lacks the heroic diction, and the high burlesque and machinery, 
of the true Mock-Epic. It is interesting to see both the clas- 
sical and the medieval beast-epic combined in the Froschmeu- 
seler of Rollenhagen, the German satirist (1595). 

The medieval beast-epic is in itself a vast satirical genre. 
According to Lenient, the cycle of Reynard alone comprises 
over 118,000 lines — beginning with the Latin poems of the 
eleventh and twelfth centuries and culminating in the Renart 
le Contrefait, about the middle of the fourteenth century. But 

^ See Lenient, pp. 129-30; Schneegans, p. 93 f. 

** See infra, p. ii8. 

'^ See Thorns, The History of Reynard the Fox, Percy Soc. Pub., Vol. 
12; Wolfif, Reinke de Vos und Satirisch-didaktische Dichtung ; Lenient, p. 
131 f . ; de Julleville, Histoire de la Lungue et de la Lit. frangaise, Tome II, 
2, pp. 14-55. 



27 

there is no end to these beast-epics. Through Italy, Spain, and 
Germany the genre spread itself, being finally galvanized into 
activity by Goethe himself. There is here no place in which ade- 
quately to trace its history ; for, while so vigorous on the Con- 
tinent, it did not appear in England — excepting, of course, 
Caxton's prose translation — until the appearance of Spenser's 
Mother Hiibherd's Tale.^^^ A full treatment of the beast-epic 
would be in place only in connection with Elizabethan satire. 
Closely related to the beast-epic is another allegorical form, 
the Beast-Fable, in prose and in verse. The fable is not neces- 
sarily satirical ; indeed it may be doubted whether the true 
fable is ever satirical. From its origin in the Hindoo Pantcha 
Tantra, through its peregrinations in the Arabic, Persian, 
Hebrew, to the Greek ^sop, the Latin Phaedrus, and a host 
of other ancient fabulists, it was moralistic and didactic. 
Under medieval influences it became satirical. The greatest 
of medieval verse-fabulists, Marie de France, was certainly 
a pungent satirist: the beast in her fables always concealed 
a man. And then follows the modern and almost innumera- 
ble group, with La Fontaine, the inimitable master, forever at 
their head — chiefly satirists pure and simple ; though the Ger- 
man Lessing reverted to what he considered the pure and orig- 
inal ^sopic type of sheer didacticism. But the Fable is also 
in itself a distinct genre, and far too vast a subject for dis- 
cussion here. A host of commentators, Lessing, Deslong- 
champs, Fischer, Taine, have treated it from various points of 
view. LaFontaine's influence on the verse-Fable of the 
Georgian era in England was incalculable and, should we con- 
sider that age and that genre, an elaborate discussion of the 
origin and history of the Fable would be necessary. Just 
here, however, such a treatment would be superfluous. Robert 
Henryson, the Scotchman, the only satirical verse-fabulist in- 
cluded in our era,^^ jg satirical in but one or two of his famous 

^^*That early fabliau. The Fox and the Wolf, and the Nun's Priest's 
Tale of Chaucer, while based on the beast-epic, do not reach "epic" 
proportions. 

^2 The work of Marie de France does not properly belong to the history 
of English satire ; see Lenient, pp. 92-6. 



28 

beast-Fables ; and these will be considered in their chronolog- 
ical order. ^^ 

The satiric Allegory might perhaps be termed a parodic, 
hence a burlesque, form; but in no true sense, for here the 
satirical intent never concerns the allegorical form itself. 
Moreover, the satiric Allegory is at best a rare species, and 
certainly could not assume the dignity of a genre. Nigellus 
Wireker's Speculum Stultorum^^ is certainly an Allegory, and 
satirical, yet of a kind altogether different from such an Alle- 
gory as Jean de Meung's Roman de la Rose. The Vision of 
Piers Plowman^^ cannot be called truly satirical, since in it 
satire is subordinate to didacticism. But Chaucer's House of 
Fame^^ is both an Allegory and a Satire,^^^ and so must stand 
as the supreme representative in English of the satiric Allegory 
in verse. 

However, in not one of these cases is the allegoric form 
itself the object of ridicule ; hence the product is in no sense 
parodic. The allegorical form is merely a vehicle, usually a 
heavy and cumbersome one, for satirical subject-matter. 

Of the two methods employed by the Satire, we have seen 
that the first, the direct method, is best illustrated by the classi- 
cal Latin Satire; the second by the different varieties of the 
Mock-Heroic. Obviously, these two methods are often com- 
bined. The burlesque appears even in the classical Satire ; 
the direct address even in the Mock-Heroic, when the bur- 
lesque method is not well sustained. The abandonment of 
the indirect or burlesque form produces the effect of direct 
satire. In such a case, as at times in Butler's Hudibras and 
very often in Byron's Don Juan, there is no real characteriza- 
tion. The character is merely a mouth-piece for the direct 
satire of the author. 

We have now described and illustrated the two methods 

^ See infra, p. 134. 
^ See infra, p. 43. 
^ See infra, p. 70. 
^ See infra, p. 114. 

''" This still remains true, even though neither the allegory nor the 
satire be held to bear any personal application to Chaucer. 



29 

employed by the Satire, and have indicated the relation of this 
genre to those kindred and subordinate genres, the Epigram, 
the Beast-Epic, the Beast-Fable, and the satiric Allegory. It 
still remains to carry out the fourth and final part of the pro- 
gram outlined on page 6, namely, to distinguish the Satire 
from all other genres, and to describe its different varieties. 

IV 

With these methods classified, and the Satire distinguished 
from minor satirical poetry that partakes of the nature of other 
genres, it now becomes merely a question of the tone and spirit 
characterizing any production under discussion as to whether 
or not it shall rank as a member of the professed genre of the 
Satire. For this purpose we have attempted to describe the 
nature of that satirical spirit that must give its tone to every 
true Satire. The Satire in the direct method always tends 
toward didacticism on the one hand and invective on the other. 
Many such poems, bearing the name of Satire, are really either 
didactic verse or mere invective. Many other poems, with 
every characteristic of the genuine Satire, go under other 
names : such are, for instance, the Epistles of Pope. The 
mere name " Satire " is significant as usually indicating a con- 
scious imitation of the classical Latin Satires ; but apart from 
this it may mean nothing at all. Such being the case, we 
must ascertain the real nature of the Satire — its tone, subject- 
matter, form, and purpose — and, by this criterion, reclassify 
our material. 

After the Satire has been set apart by itself, we see that it 
differs, in a very significant way, from all other genres of 
poetry. This difference does not lie merely in the fact that 
any genre possesses an individuality of its own, and that each, 
including the Satire, has a characteristic tone which distin- 
guishes it from all other forms. This is true enough, and yet 
not the whole truth ; for the Satire, in a very essential fashion, 
stands by itself, apart from all other genres of poetry. The 
distinction is fundamental : — the Satire is destructive : other 
genres are constructive ; the Satire is realistic ; the others are 
idealistic. All other genres of poetry have their enthusiasm 



30 

and faith, their elevated diction, their more or less attractive 
subject-matter. The Satire, on the other hand, has a tone 
ironical and unenthusiastic, a diction characteristically prosaic, 
subject-matter often sordid, sometimes positively ugly and 
revolting. Hence it follows that the Satire stands apart from 
all other forms, and must depend largely upon its style to 
perpetuate material in itself more or less ephemeral and 
unattractive. 

Employing methods and forms so various, with frequently 
so little of organic form and methodical structure, the Satire, 
unlike the Ode, the Elegy, the Lyric, etc., cannot possibly be 
classified as a distinct genre of an individual and characteris- 
tic form. Still, we can differentiate the professed Satire from 
these other genres, even from didactic poetry and the lesser 
parodic forms. This done, we yet find a great mass of inter- 
esting material that remains to be considered. 

This material is roughly divisible into four more or less 
clearly defined groups. Each of these has individual charac- 
teristics, but often mingles with the other varieties. 

Personal Satire, in which the primitive satirical spirit finds 
expression, and which gave birth to all other kinds, is common 
to every age and literature.^^ It is scarcely a variety in itself, 
for it easily passes into its kindred kinds. In such cases the 
personalities are used to point the moral and adorn the tale of 
social, political, or literary satire f^ but the personal Satire, as 
a distinct variety, only too easily becomes invective, the prod- 
uct of hatred or of malice, unrelieved by humor. Such invec- 
tive may still by force of genius be lifted into the domain of 
literature, as for instance, the vitriolic sonnets that the Floren- 
tine poet Berni hurled at the head of his crafty enemy, Pietro 
Aretino, the Venetian. But these are not true satire. The 
interest afforded by invectives is largely antiquarian, and must 
depend on the personality of the contestants. To this class 
belong the Greek lyric Satires, since their poisoned darts 

" For primitive satire among the Lapps and the Greenlanders, see Flogel, 
I, 319-20. 

^ Such is usually the case in England before the Renaissance ; e. g., the 
sirventes against King John, infra, p. 48 ; the satire against Suffolk, infra, 
p. 126 f . ; against Wolsey, infra, p. 149 f. 



31 

were winged solely with malice, and their purely personal \ 
attacks voiced no general need or desire. Where humor is 
entirely lacking, where malice breathes in every line, there is 
no satire. The usual result of rage is not satire, but abuse. 

Something universal must first find expression through this 
personal element, before such a " Satire " can attain a high 
place in literature. Berni's magnificent sonnet is literature, 
because the personality of Aretino is merged in the poet's 
scorn for the eternal type of the hypocrite.^^ Ulrich von 
Hutten wrote a prose Satire called Phalarismus against the 
infamous Duke Ulrich of Wiirtemberg. It is edged with vio- 
lent personal rancor; but in the Duke, Hutten, with infinite 
humor, satirizes the eternal type of the tyrant. Thus the dia- 
logue rises into great literature and, more narrowly, into the 
true Satire. Dryden's Mac Flecknoe is also an excellent ex- 
ample. It is personal in its target, yet Shadwell represents 
the eternal poetaster. Here the satirist's personal feeling 
toward the object of his attack is lost in the qualities that mark 
the highest type of satire — the presence of the ludicrous and 
the possibility of a broad application. The Dunciad is great 
despite many bitter and foolish personalities, for at its best it 
corresponds to Mac Flecknoe. It has humor as well as wit; 
and where there is true personal satire, there must be laugh- 
ter. This laughter may be scornful and contemptuous enough, 
as in the Satires of Swift, but the satirist's attitude must be 
one of amused superiority. Personal malice there may be, 
but it must not dominate the tone. The satirist may hold his 
enemy up to public ridicule, may caricature him, but he must 
do this with a sufficient sense of the ludicrous. 

The political Satire is essentially a product of free political 
conditions, and may exist apart from any other variety. 
Scarcely existent in the literature of Rome, hardly more so in 
that of Italy and of Spain, only to a limited extent in that of 
France, the political Satire is characteristically English.*^ It 
is obvious that in periods of revolution, of change and stress, 

^' So with Skelton's satire against Wolsey, who typifies the tyrant and 
royal favorite; see infra, p. 152 f. 
*° It begins early, and never dies ; see infra, passim, and especially ch. IV. 



32 

the political Satire will flourish.*^ An extensive satirical lit- 
erature has accompanied every great political revolution of 
modern times.*^ Such satire has been a growth as the people 
have gained in ability to govern and to express themselves. 
Lampoons, squibs, political ballads, furnish the more popular 
and degenerate dress of the spirit that occasionally attains such 
expression in literature as Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel. 

Political satire is essentially ephemeral. Its illustrations are 
drawn from transient conditions ; its localisms in time become 
obscure and lose their pristine flavor. This evaporating proc- 
ess may at last leave the political Satire a lifeless thing, of 
interest only to the special student. But however ephemeral, 
it is in its day by far the most effective variety of its genre. 
The political satirist appeals to the heart of the people and 
can be at once both popular writer and literary artist. 

The personalities characterizing this variety show its love 
for the argument ad hominem. It points its moral by means 
of some familiar name, and like the personal Satire is apt to 
utilize invective.*^ Though its prosaic material offer little for 
the fancy to play upon, it may still become great literature, 
as in the masterpiece of Dryden. 

The most characteristic and formal, yet perhaps the least 
effective variety, is the Moral and Social Satire. It rises into 
greatness in the work of a Horace or of a Pope, yet the horde 
of satirical poetasters who exercise themselves on this social 
material, are terribly fond of inane generalization, didacticism, 
and dullness.** These small aspirants have wandered off into 
mere generalities and attacked in vague meaningless terms 
the follies and crimes common to every age.*^ Certainly this 
is one way of gaining " universality." Such satirists attain 

*^ Did it originate with ^sop's fable of King Stork and King Log, which 
he told to those Athenians who resented the tyranny of Peisistratos ? 

" The great satirists of the Reformation, such as Murner, Luther, Hutten, 
Fischart, Lyndsay, and Buchanan, were necessarily political to a certain 
extent, where the question of the Pope's temporal sovereignty and political 
influence was concerned. 

"£. g., the politico-personal Satires of Skelton, see infra, p. 149 f. 

** Only too prevalent in medieval England ; see infra, passim. 

" Such generalized subject-matter forms what has aptly been termed 
" satirical commonplace." 



33 

the universal well enough, but through lack of imagination, 
fail to re-embody it in the concrete material afforded by the 
characteristic life of their own times. 

The classical Latin Satire, though not lacking in personali- 
ties and in literary elements, is still of this general type.*® 
It has served as a model for all subsequent satire of its kind, 
and we find everywhere the Social Satire betraying the great- 
est classical influence, the most rigorous form. When genu- 
ine and indigenous, it is always the product of a highly organ- 
ized and complex society, in a time of peace. Such a society 
has both desire and leisure to study itself. This highly sophis- 
ticated and self-conscious variety of the Satire is both the 
result and the mirror of these conditions. 

But the Satire on literary subjects is perhaps an even more 
sophisticated variety.*^ Existing side by side with the Moral 
and Social Satire, it is often absorbed into these more compre- 
hensive types. Really beginning with Aristophanes, it is con- 
tinued by Horace. Juvenal, too, amuses himself with literary 
pretenders ; and since his time, the Satire on literary themes 
has furnished a play-ground for every writer of the formal 
Satire. It has proved a handy and effective weapon in liter- 
ary quarrels, and under these conditions has usually flourished ; 
as witness Mac Flecknoe, The Dunciad, English Bards and 
Scotch Reviewers, to mention only a few representative poems 
of a type whose exemplars are legion. 

A pleasant sub-variety of this purely literary Satire is that 
of what might be termed the " Parnassian " poems. This 
fashion was set in Italy by Cesare Caporali, with his Viaggio 
in Parnaso, and Vita de Meccenate ; and continued by Bocca- 
lini in his Ragguagli di Parnaso. In Spain, Cervantes fol- 
lowed with his elaborate Viaje al Parnaso (1615) ; while in 
England the tradition has been preserved successively by Suck- 
ling, Wither, Lady Winchelsea, Sheffield, Swift, and Leigh 
Hunt.*^ The series is continued in America with Lowell's 
Fable for Critics. 

" See supra, p, 15. 

" This variety is very rare in England before the Renaissance. 
** Goldsmith's Retaliation, though its subject-matter is somewhat more 
inclusive, really belongs to this class. 



34 

We have now, however inadequately, finished the four divi- 
sions of the analytical program outlined on page 6 : first, 
to ascertain the nature and the working of the satirical spirit; 
second, to distinguish between satire in prose and satire in 
verse ; third, to describe the two methods of the Satire and to 
indicate the relations of the Satire to certain minor genres ; 
and, finally, to differentiate the Satire from all other genres 
of poetry and to set forth its different varieties. It still re- 
mains to be seen how the product in England before the 
Renaissance bears out and illustrates the foregoing analysis. 



CHAPTER II 
From Walter Map to Langland 

Absence of satire in Anglo-Saxon poetry. — Possible reasons for same. — 
Revival of literature under Henry II. — Three schools of satirical verse : 
Goliardic ; Anglo-Norman ; Anglo-Latin. — The sirvente. — The Goliards. — 
Walter Mapes. — Themes and methods of Goliardic satire. — Anglo-Latin 
satire. — Apocalypsis Goliae. — The Confession of Golias. — Other Goliardic 
Satires. — General character of these productions. — The Speculum Stul- 
torum. — Alexander Neckham's De Vita Monachorum. — John of Salisbury's 
Polycraticus ; his Entheticus. — Goliardic satire in the reign of King John. — 
Anglo-Norman sirventes against John. — Satires in the reign of William 
II. — The Barons' War. — Richard of Cornwall. — A lutel Soth sermun. — The 
Visions of Heaven and Hell. — The XI Pains of Hell. — Satire under Edward 
I. — Social satire. — The Owl and the Nightingale. — Attacks on the clergy. — 
The friars. — The Order of Fair Ease. — The Land of Cokaygne. — Political 
satire. — Robert Manning's Handlyng Synne. — Richard Rolle's The Pricke 
of Conscience. — Satire under Edward II. — Its subject-matter. — A Poem on 
the Times of Edward II. — Rise of class-satire. — Causes of same. — Satires 
on Piers Gaveston. — Satire und^r' Edward III. — Satire against France. — 
Prophecy of John of Bridlington. — The Vision of Piers the Plowman. — Its 
subject-matter. — Its relation to the Roman de la Rose. — Its allegorical 
form. — Its various methods. — Its satire against abstractions ; against 
classes. — Its didactic element. — Its humor and realism. — Langland's advance 
beyond his predecessors. 

I 

Neither in Anglo-Saxon poetry nor in the Latin writings of 
the Anglo-Saxon period can we find a trace of satire. Pic- 
tures of the Last Judgment, debates between the Body and 
the Soul, sombre invective in the Blickling homilies and in the 
homilies of Wulfstan, form the nearest approach to the satir- 
ical that this first period of English literature has to ofifer us. 
We need not seek far for the reasons. One lies, perhaps, in 
the serious temper of a race lacking in humor and in lightness 
of touch; a race, too, bound by heroic traditions, serious and 
high in purpose ; a homogeneous race, finally, and a society in 
which objects for satire either political, literary, or social were 
largely wanting. Even the ecclesiastical body, for centuries 
afterwards a prime object of attack, while by no means im- 
maculate at this period, had still not sunk into the corruption 

35 



36 

that subsequently rendered it the target for universal reproach ; 
and social and political conditions in general were certainly 
not such as to foster satire of any description. 

After that century of civil war following the Conquest, a 
century during which not merely literature but society itself 
was in a deplorable condition, there came an intellectual re- 
vival. The Gallic spirit was already operating beneficently 
on the sombre and exhausted Saxon genius. Comparative 
leisure and peace had succeeded the unspeakable ravages of 
Stephen's reign, and even John's political follies could not 
prevent a renascence of literary life in the monasteries and 
some attention to contemporary affairs on the part of monastic 
writers. At this period, the close of the twelfth century, after 
the establishment of the universities with their greater atten- 
tion to literature, and after the fusion of Saxon and Norman 
elements in the nation under the rule of Henry the Second, 
we discern the first trace of the spirit which was destined, 
almost five centuries later, to find its consummate expression 
in the masterpieces of Dryden and of Pope. 

The first impulse came from abroad. The racial effect of 
the Conquest give birth to English satire : it made a hetero- 
geneous people ; it finally directed English students to the 
University of Paris. From this foreign influence sprang the 
poetry of the Goliards and of the Anglo-Latin satirists and 
epigrammatists. 

Throughout the first two centuries of its history, English 
satirical poetry divides itself into three principal schools. 
EHiring the twelfth century we find the Goliardic Latin rhymes, 
the Anglo-French sirventes,^ the more formal satire of the 
Anglo-Latin writers. In the thirteenth century, the Goliardic 
poetry used not only Latin, but Anglo-French and English 
as its vehicle ; the sirvente of the trouvere and troubadour 
passed into the satirical song of the English gleeman ; the 
Anglo-Latin passed into the nondescript ecclesiastical satire in 
Latin, in Anglo-French, and in English. So we have to deal 
not only with three classes but with three languages. 

* Not strictly Anglo-Norman, but referring to any sirventes written either 
by trouveres or by troubadours which refer to England or to English 
affairs. 



37 

The sirvente^ — sometimes called the sotte chanson — origi- 
nated toward the end of the eleventh century, perhaps in 
Picardy, but soon became the common property of both trou- 
veres and troubadours. It was at first a mere personal chal- 
lenge, often outrageous in its tone ; afterwards it became 
more general. But it was always daring, witty, satirical, 
varied in its subject-matter, and abounding in personalities. 
Bertrand de Born, one of the greatest of the troubadours, was 
its chief exponent; but it had already found its way into Eng- 
land shortly after the Conquest. It was essentially lyrical : 
Beranger's Songs were its lineal descendants. Transplanted 
into England, the sirvente has come dow^n to us in a few iso- 
lated examples in Anglo-French ; but it soon left its Anglo- 
French and its personalities for English and nationality ; and, 
in the reign of Edward I, became the song of the English glee- 
men. It was specific and definite in its subject-matter, hurled 
itself at kings like John and Henry III, then at the Scotch ; 
finally turned against its own ancestral people and ridiculed 
the French themselves. The comparatively few satirical songs 
that have survived merely hint at the vast number of these 
light and winged satirical occasional poems that must have 
perished while scarcely off the gleeman's tongue.* 

Far more abundant than the sirventes is the Goliardic prod- 
uct of this period. The term " Goliardic " is usually restricted 
to Latin rhyming verse, but at least one authority would in- 
clude poems in both Anglo-French and English.^ Who were 
the " Goliards " ? A literary question more difficult could 
scarcely be raised. In the great age of the University of 
Paris, clerks, students, scholars, thronged to France. They 
were far-travelled and sharp sighted; satire was their natural 
weapon. Some one (was it Walter Map, the Englishman?) 
began the rhyming Latin satirical verse, to be known as 
" Goliardic." Critics disagree as to the origin of the name. 

^ Sirvente comes from Latin serviens, by allusion to the suivant d'armes 
charged with the cartel in the name of his master. 

^ See Lenient, pp. 21-22. 

* The lyric satire of the sirvente was paralleled by the political and per- 
sonal satire in the songs of the minnesingers (c. 1200). 

° See Haessner, Die Goliardendichtung, passim. 



38 

Who impersonated Bishop GoHas, type of the immoral pre- 
late that satirized monachism, women, and public morals, and 
praised wine and song, with such gusto and facility? Was 
Bishop Golias one man or a thousand? Did the name derive 
from giila, the gullet, or from Goliath of Gath? When did 
this peculiar and influential form of verse originate, and 
where ? 

France was probably the birthplace, and the early twelfth 
century perhaps the time.^ The genre was already decaying 
Vv'hen it passed into England, carried by the young students 
from Paris. It is impossible to say how many Goliardic 
songs originated in France. Goliardic poetry is usually 
lacking in any personal or local allusions that may stamp 
its origin. Of the poems included by Wright in his Latin 
Poems Commonly Attributed to Walter Mapes, some were 
probably of French authorship. But the name of *' Walter 
Mapes " has been attached to Goliardic poetry by the tra- 
dition of many centuries. The variety of his literary ac- 
tivity, his fame as a wit, his known hatred of the Cis- 
tercians, may have foisted upon him the parentage of the 
whole Goliardic genre. At best, he was the author of but 
few of the poems ascribed to him — ^perhaps of none. The 
two elaborate Goliardic Satires to which his name is insepara- 
bly attached will here be treated as his, however; for neither 
exact time, locality, nor authorship, is of great import when 
considering Goliardic poetry.'^ 

This Goliardic satire persists in England through the later 
twelfth century, through the entire thirteenth, and even down 
to the reign of Edward III. At first written exclusively in 
rhyming Latin verse, it passes into Anglo-French ; finally, 
with an effort on the part of its authors to popularize it, even 
into English. Its most characteristic themes are the decadence 
of the age, the immorality of the ecclesiastical orders, and 
woman; and these themes, at first international, develop in 

' Die Goliardendichtung, passim. But cf. Chambers, The Mediaeval 
Stage, Vol. I, p. 6i, who gives the order issued by Gautier of Sens in his 
Constitutiones (913 A. D.) : " Statuimus quod clerici ribaldi, maxime qui 
dicuntur de familia Golise . . . etc." This would set back the date two 
hundred years ! 

' See Haessner, pp. 150-1. 



39 

England distinctly national traits, and even become political. 
The Goliards, liberal in politics, can occasionally speak with the 
freedom, vigor, and bitterness of the trouveres. Their method 
is both direct and dramatic; their tone infinitely varied. In- 
dependent of tradition, without classical influences, the Goli- 
ardic poetry was entirely the product of its time. 

Clearly distinct from this Goliardic satire, but also indirectly 
emanating from the University of Paris, is the Anglo-Latin 
satire of the twelfth century. This passed, as did the trou- 
vere and the Goliardic, through Anglo-French into Eng- 
lish. Beginning about 1200 A. D, with the prose works of 
Walter Map and others, for example the De Nugts Curialium, 
it sprang from reformatory tendencies in the Church itself. 
The elaborate compositions of Nigellus Wireker, John of 
Salisbury, and Alexander Neckham, are succeeded in the fol- 
lowing century by a mass of nondescript satire in English, 
sometimes by monks, perhaps by parish priests. The subject- 
matter is frequently ecclesiastical or social, the tone severe, the 
style free from allusions of any kind. But it may run to the 
opposite extreme — if we include The Land of Cockaygne and 
The Order of Fair Ease. Indeed, in every respect its range 
is so extensive, its product so often almost nondescript, that 
its ecclesiastical authorship and academic style alone serve to 
distinguish it from the satirical product of Goliards and of 
gleemen. 

II 

That order of Benedictine monks, which, under Augustine, 
converted England from paganism, had long since declined 
from its pristine spirituality into the numberless corruptions 
that make the staple theme of medieval satire. In an attempt 
to reform the Benedictines, about 1132 A. D., several new 
orders were introduced into England. Among these orders 
were the Cistercians, who were soon to become, through their 
extensive wool industry, the wealthiest body in the realm. 
Buit not half a century passed before the reformatory impulse 
of the new orders was exhausted, and they themselves had 
sunk into the same low spiritual condition as those very Bene- 
dictines whom they had come to reform. 



40 

These depraved ecclesiastical conditions formed a favorite 
Goliardic theme. Among these Goliardic compositions are 
two, as has been said, that were perhaps the actual work of 
Walter Map.^ The first of these two poems is the Apocalypsis 
GolicB,^ an elaborate composition of over four hundred lines 
in rhyming quatrains. 

Through a miraculous revelation, which is in form a 
parody^^ of the Revelation of St. John, the sins of the clergy, 
from pope to parish priest, are revealed to the poet. The 
entire hierarchy is summoned before the Throne of Judgment. 
Pope, Bishop, Archdeacon, Dean, Abbot, and Monk, are in- 
fected with vice — false shepherds, blind leaders of Christ's 
flock ! The poet's epithets are of unsparing severity, and his 
rebuke is as direct and overwhelming as any that could well be 
delivered. A more severe indictment against the whole eccle- 
siastical hierarchy does not exist in the satire of England. The 
attack, if made by Walter Map, emanates from one of their 
own order, a critic who knew both Church and world ; 
not a cloistered monk, but a man of action. The satirist 
perhaps feels too keenly the degradation of the priesthood 
to indulge in any humor. His tone is throughout bitterly 
severe, so much so as to become invective rather than 
satire; for though the verse at times gives a ludicrous effect, 
there is no intentional burlesque, and the frequent word-plays 
are not to raise a laugh, but to carry a point. 

The Confession of Golias, though in subject-matter largely 
identical with the Apocalypse, is yet in form and tone widely 
dissimilar. The Confession is burlesque in form,^^ and at first 
richly humorous in tone, but finally didactic.^^ Bishop Golias, 
type of the immoral prelate, confesses his various enormities 
to the Bishop of Coventry. In the course of this " heart to 

* Only perhaps; there is reason to believe The Confession, at least, of 
Italian origin. See Symonds, Wine, Women and Song, p. 60. 

* The Latin Poems Commonly Attributed to Walter Mapes, ed. Wright, 
Camden Soc. Pub., Vol. 16, pp. 1-20. 

^'* See supra, p. 25. 

" See supra, p. 18 f. 

" The Latin Poems, etc., p. 71 f. 



41 

heart talk," he admits that he loves <the tavern and the wine- 
cup: 

" Meum est propositum in taberna mori, 

Vinum sit appositum morientis ori ; 

Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori, 

Deus sit propitius huic potatori " — 

but he professes himself sincerely repentant and promises to 
reform. Certain parts of this burlesque confession have been 
adopted as a drinking song of universal celebrity, and have 
led to the wholly unwarranted supposition that the author of 
the poem was himself a toper. 

Among these supposedly English Goliardic poems are many 
of a very general character, such as lugubrious wails over the 
depravity of the age, the state of the church, and the approach- 
ing destruction of the universe. Of this kind are the De 
Mundi Miseria,'^^ and the Prophecy of Golias,^^ which is a 
general call to repentance ; while the medieval attitude toward 
woman finds expression in a violent attack on the sex entitled 
Golias de Conjuge non Ducenda}^ This unmitigated libel 
rehearses, in a fashion both gross and dull, those perennial 
charges that have been the property of the ages since the time 
of Simonides. This particular poem, however, seems to have 
had a certain popularity ; and it exercised some subsequent 
influence, as is witnessed by an English paraphrase of the 
fifiteenth century. ^^ 

But Goliardic humor, though lacking in these more serious 
attempts, is at times exuberant. In several poems on the uni- 
versal sovereignty of money, a humorous perception of social 
incongruities finds expression in very effective, albeit rather 
bitter, irony. Such is the De Cruce Denarii,'^'^ in which is 
celebrated the omnipotence of the penny and the magical 
transformations effected by that modern worker of miracles. 
Nothing more effective than the Penny, cries the poet, in the 

^^ Ibid., p. 149 f. 

" Ibid., p. 52 f. 

" Latin Poems Commonly Attributed to Walter Mapes, p. 77 f. 

^^ Ibid., p. 295 f. 

" Ibid., p. 223 f. 



42 

palace or the consistory courts! And this, too, is the com- 
plaint of the author of De Nummo,^^ which is of the same 
type, and was afterwards imitated in French, Latin, English, 
and Scotch ; becoming, with others of its class, the founder of 
a great family of such poems throughout medieval Western 
Europe. 

It could not have been at a much later date that some " Goli- 
ard " expressed himself vigorously on the subject of a French 
education and French vices. ^^ " Those barons who send their 
sons to be educated in France," declares the satirist, " are 
responsible for the introduction of foreign vices into Eng- 
land." Another, against " The Social Parasites " (the " ri- 
balds "),^° addresses itself most seriously to Bishops and 
Abbots, warning them to be liberal, but not to squander their 
wealth on these parasites who thrive upon the life-blood of 
society. Illustrated by Biblical examples, but largely unquot- 
able, the poem hints at unspeakable conditions of society — as 
do others of its kind. Still another, A General Satire on all 
Classes of Society,^'^ concerns itself with subjeot-matter less 
objectionable, and hits chiefly at the condition of the Church. 
Its frequent intermixture of Norman words would seem to 
indicate an attempt to popularize the Goliardic satire. 

Still more humorous, though unfortunately highly indecor- 
ous, are the two burlesque poems that purport to be accounts 
of sacerdotal convocations in which the monks have assembled 
to discuss the decree of Pope Innocent III (1215), condemn- 
ing the wives or concubines of the clergy.^^ These are fairly 
good examples of an undoubtedly humorous, though rather 
crude, form of burlesque. ^^ 

These various Goliardic poems, with a multitude of others 
of like form and tenor, all written at about the same period 
( 1 175-1250?), are characteristically devoid of personal and 

" Ibid., p. 226. 

" Anecdota Literaria, ed. Wright, pp. 38-9. 

^ Ibid., pp. 40-2. 

^ Anecdota Literaria, pp. 43-4. 

^ Latin Poems Commonly Attributed to Walter Mapes, pp. 171, 180, 

"See supra, p. 18 f. 



43 

local allusions that might enable us to fix their time and place 
with any degree of certainty. Though without individuality, 
they probably represent the attitude of a large body of thought- 
ful people of their period. This fact renders them in some 
degree a genuinely popular expression, evoked by existing 
conditions, whether in England or on the Continent. 

Far more academic than the Goliardic satire in both form 
and treatment is the Speculum Stultorum of Nigellus Wireker 
(fl. 1 190), precentor in the Benedictine Monastery at Canter- 
bury, and friend and protege of that able but mischievous pre- 
late, William de Longchamps, Bishop of Ely. In this instance 
the criticism comes entirely from within the fold, and shows 
the monastic bodies as they seemed to one of their own more 
faithful and spiritual brethren. The poem is also the product 
of that purer Latin style and love for classical imitation, 
which, introduced into England by the Normans, resulted in 
an interesting school of satirists and epigrammatists during 
the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 

In the prologue, addressed to his friend William, Nigellus 
states his purpose in writing and his conception of the nature 
of satire. His motive for writing is that professed by the 
satirist in every age; but his idea concerning the form and 
treatment of the Satire is strangely Horatian. " There are 
to-day in the world," he says, " many hypocrites ; there is no 
art or order in which there is not some deceit. Professors 
of the arts simulate knowledge; the religious orders simulate 
virtue." Recognizing these unfortunate conditions, he pro- 
poses to reform by jocosity what cannot be effected by rough 
rebuke ; " for many are the diseases which yield more readily 
to unguents than to caustic." ^^ True enough for a general 
theory of satire ; but the good monk was wrong in thinking 
that his unguents could effect what only the caustic method 
of wholesale disestablishment accomplished some three cen- 
turies later. 

■* The Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists of the Twelfth 
Century, ed. Wright, Vol. I, pp. 3-145. 



44 

In this same prologue the monastic satirist gravely explains 
the allegorical features of his work, as if apologizing for its 
delightful humor by emphasizing its reformatory and didac- 
tic purpose. Fortunately his explanations of the ass, the tail, 
the prescription in its fragile glass bottles, are confined to the 
prologue, and do not affect the humor or the conduct of 
the story, which would be sufficiently effective in itself with- 
out the allegory. 

Burnellus, the ass, represents the whole monastic body, 
greedy for gain, eager for change. Burnellus ardently desires 
a longer tail. He consults the physician Galen, who, after 
expostulating with him upon the folly of his desire, gives him 
an absurd prescription that is to be filled at Salerno and 
brought back in glass bottles — typifying thereby, as we have 
learned from the prologue, the monk who runs after vanities 
both costly and frail. On his journey toward Salerno, Bur- 
nellus is cheated by a London merchant, and on his return trip 
meets with a variety of mishaps that arise mainly from the 
malice of monks of other orders. (Burnellus is a Benedic- 
tine.) A Cistercian brother, near Lyons, sets upon him four 
mastiffs who bite off half of his tail and break his medicine 
bottles ; but the final issue is disastrous for the Cistercian, 
since the ass incontinently and gleefully drowns him in the 
Rhone, singing upon his demise a Canticle of victory: 

" Cantemus, socii ! festum celebremus, aselli ! 
Vocibus et votis organa nostra sonent." 

Burnellus, unwilling to return home with his mangled tail, 
proceeds to the University of Paris. He is ready to study 
and does not fear the rod. But, after spending seven years 
in close application, he cannot even remember the name of the 
city where he has been toiling; so he leaves in disgust and 
resolves to enter a monastic order. After this resolution is 
formed, he reviews without satisfaction the various religious 
bodies, with rather severe criticism of each. The vices both 
of monks and nuns are dwelt upon — Cistercians, White Friars, 
Templars, Carthusians, Regular Canons, and others. The ass 



45 

is disgusted with all, and determines to form a new order for 
himself which shall unite the best characteristics of the others. 
He meets Galen, describes his plan, and invites his cooperation. 
But at this juncture Bernardus, his old master, appears on the 
scene, claims his property, and leads Burnellus away to his 
original condition of servitude. 

In this form we find a singular union of burlesque and 
allegory, ordinarily two most incompatible elements. On the 
face of it, the story is merely a burlesque on monachism and 
on university life at Paris. The general idea of the ass as a 
representative of the monastic body ; and, in particular, Galen's 
absurd prescription for lengthening Burnellus' tail, and Bur- 
nellus' song of triumph over the drowned Cistercian brother, 
are all examples of burlesque. But best of all is the plan for 
the order of monks, which the ass proposes to establish, to be 
known as the ** novus ordo Burnelli." 

" I shall found a new order," ^^ he says, " that shall per- 
petuate my name. My order shall take the best from all the 
others. From the Templars we can learn to use softly-step- 
ping horses, that my monks may be pleasantly seated ; but the 
right to lie at all seasons, also peculiar to the Templars, I 
shall deny to every one but myself. The monks of Cluny will 
teach me how to enjoy rich feasts on the six holidays of the 
week — the other brethren can live on my scraps. I commend 
the Gradimontanes for their excessive loquacity, and shall 
imitate them; and the Carthusian brethren ought to be fol- 
lowed in certain of their customs. Let us also imitate the 
Black Canons in their habit of eating flesh, lest we be termed 
hypocritical ; and the Praemonstratenes will teach us how to 
wear soft clothing. From other orders we learn how desira- 
ble is a female companion ; for this, the first order was insti- 
tuted in Paradise, and should be perpetually maintained." 
And so on. But apart from these burlesque features are the 
allegorical elements as Wireker expounds them in his pro- 
logue. In all this allegory, however, are no personified ab- 

^° " The Order of the Ass " later became common satirical property on 
the Continent. 



46 

stractions such as became popularized through the Roman de 
la Rose less than a century later. The two have absolutely 
nothing in common, though, as we shall see later, the Roman 
de la Rose was not without its influence on English satire. 

The Speculum Stiiltorum, with its attack on ecclesiastical 
corruption, and its incidental satire on university life, seems 
to be the work of a man who knew his material at first hand. 
Though obviously an academic product, Wireker's Satire has 
the vitality and significance of a work evoked by contemporary 
needs, and having an earnest purpose. It is written in fairly 
good Latin elegiac verse and is, as has been said, a product 
of the purer Latin style introduced into England by the Nor- 
mans. That it is deficient in the higher qualities of poetry 
goes almost without saying; yet its rich humor of theme and 
expression may well atone for its lack of poetical merit. The 
" Novus Ordo Burnelli " soon became common satirical prop- 
erty and exercised a perceptible effect on subsequent satire. 
It forms, in fact, the first member of a long series of " fool 
Satires," which were to appear again centuries later in the 
work of Barclay and the less elaborate efforts of Lydgate, 
Skelton, and others. 

But Nigellus Wireker, though by far the greatest, was not 
the only Anglo-Latin satirist. His contemporary, Alexander 
Neckham (1157-1217), Abbot of Cirencester, besides his 
elaborate scientific treatises in prose and in verse, and other 
works, wrote in elegiac verse his De Vita Monachorum.^^ 
Admonitory, serious in intent, in no true sense satirical, this 
elaborate didactic poem exhorts the monks to lead pure lives, 
upbraids the rich and powerful, bitterly bewails the decadence 
of manners, reproaches the female sex. This last note con- 
nects itself with the Papal edict on celibacy, which evoked such 
widespread controversy.^^ Neckham emphasizes the danger of 
marriage and the necessity of celibacy. Sincere enough, doubt- 
less, and greatly needed, certainly, De Vita Monachorum is still 
dry, didactic, and dull. 

An early contemporary of both Wireker and Neckham, John 

''^ Satirical Poets and Epigrammatists, 2, 175-200. 
^ Haessner, passim. 



47 

of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres (1120-1167), in addition to 
his famous Polycraticus and his letters, wrote " a satirical 
poem in six books, supporting scholastic philosophy against 
the courtiers." 2^ This work is entitled Entheticus de dogmate 
Philosophorum. Knowing the scarcity of real satire among 
Anglo-Latin productions of this period, and how prone the 
good clerks were to sheer didacticism without a saving grain 
of humor, we may well doubt the satirical tone of the Enthe- 
ticus. 

But the Speculum Stultorum and De Vita Monachorum by 
no means exhaust the religious satire of this reign. Other, 
and very minor, productions, couched mainly in Goliardic 
Latin verse, appeared but a few years later, in the early thir- 
teenth century, when King John and Pope Innocent III dis- 
agreed over the appointment of an Archbishop of Canterbury. 
In 1207 the king sent large sums of money to Rome to bribe 
the advisers of the Pope, but failed to prevent the appoint- 
ment of that Stephen Langton who was soon to embarrass 
John so seriously at Runnymede and elsewhere. The papal 
interdict had followed upon the King's refusal to receive 
Langton as archbishop, and this uncomfortable state of affairs 
continued for five years. Within this period we find some 
clerk, aroused by the miserable condition of the country, in- 
veighing bitterly against papal aggression. He writes in Goli- 
ardic Latin rhyme, and his text is the avarice and venality of 
the Roman court. -^ *' Rome is a market where all is offered 
for sale," he cries. " The highest bidder wins, and the poor 
man, pleading without the eloquence of money, though he have 
on his side Justinian and all the canons of the saints, cannot 
prevail." In one stanza the poet indulges in those character- 
istic Goliardic puns that appear in the poems attributed to 
Walter Map, and that are constantly employed in religious 
satire until they show themselves finally in Gower's moral 
diatribes two centuries later :^^ 

^ Morley, English Writers, III, p. i8i. 

^Political Songs of England from John to Edward IT, ed. Wright, p. 14 f. 

^^ The translations given here are in some cases revisions and condensa- 
tions of those furnished by Wright ; but for the accuracy of these and all 
other translations in the present volume the author alone is responsible. 



48 

" Solam avaritiam Roma novit parca ; 
Parcit danti munera, parco non est parca ; 
Nummus est pro numine, et pro Marco marca, 
Et est minus Celebris ara, quam sit arca."^^ 

Growing more directly out of the papal controversy, and 
far more specific and personal in its character, is a virulent 
attack in rhyming Latin verse in seven-line stanzas, on the 
bishops of Bath, of Norwich, and of Winchester, who sided 
with the king.^- This constitutes our first extant Political 
Satire.^^ The invective is preceded by some general remarks 
before the writer reaches his true theme, and is followed by a 
eulogy of Rochester and Ely, who favored the Pope. 

But the beginning of political satire in the reign of King 
John is not confined to this Latin product. It is also ex- 
emplified in more popular Anglo-French songs^* against 
the king's foreign policy. At Richard's death, Normandy, 
long restive under foreign rule, was lost to England, but there 
still remained among the Normans a faction devoted to the 
English cause as against Philip of France, the new ruler. 
Soon after the Siege of Thouars, in 1206, some Norman trou- 
vere reproaches the English king for leaving the Bordelois, 
laments the separation from England, and beseeches Savary 
of Mauleon not to fail the cause.^^ But far more pointed and 
bitter is another sirvente, a personal attack on the king, writ- 
ten probably in 12 14, after the loss of Poitou and Touraine, 
by the younger Bertrand de Born, and also addressed to 
Savary de Mauleon.^® The poem is short, but vitriolic. 
" King John," says the troubadour, " has lost his dominions 
over sea, but he does not care. He cares but for hunting 
hawks, greyhounds, and ease ! " — 

*^ " Penurious Rome knows only avarice. She spares the gift-giver, but 
is not sparing to the penurious man. She prefers money to God and a 
mark to St. Mark. Her altar is less celebrated than her money-chest." 

^" Political Songs, p. 6 f. 

^ See supra, p. 31 f. 

^* For other examples of this lyric satire, see infra, passim, and especially 
p. 124 f. 

^' Ibid., p. I. 

^^ Political Songs, p. 3. 



49 

" Mais ama I'bordir e I'cassar, 
E braes e lebriers et austors, 
E sojorn." 

The reproaeh was not entirely just, for John did not sur- 
render his French possessions without a struggle. This, how- 
ever, though relating to England's king, is really a foreign 
product; as are the two sirventes against Henry III, written 
by Bernard de Rovenac.^^ They would neither have been 
written nor have been sung in the England of this period. 
Still these, together with the Latin poem on the bishops, are 
the only verses that remain to echo the momentous events of 
John's disastrous reign. The loss of a foreign empire, the 
domestic struggles against Church and baronage, wars with 
Irish, Welsh, and Scotch, Stephen Langton and Magna Charta 
— these great events, despite the lack of a common medium 
of speech, may well have been the themes of singers in songs 
that have utterly passed away. Domestic turmoil may pre- 
vent the rise of a high order of literature, but it cannot hush 
political satire, which has flourished in every such troubled 
period of English history. 

Nor have we much more surviving from the stormy half 
century of Henry Ill's rule. Intolerable papal extortion, 
royal oppression, unsuccessful invasions of French territory, 
and, most significant of all, the prolonged struggle between 
king and baronage, have scarcely survived in polemic verse. 
King John's servile submission to the Pope, and the resultant 
papal taxation, resented so bitterly by the English people, 
were followed in the reign of John's immediate successor by 
the culmination of papal tyranny in England — a tyranny that 
finally grew so intolerable as to lead in the latter part of 
Henry's reign to utter and successful revolt. With the au- 
thority of the Pope, the king compelled the clergy to contribute 
one-tenth of their goods to enable him to carry on his unfortu- 
nate foreign wars. It was probably at the period of the 
Sicilian expedition, in aid of the Pope (1257), that some eccle- 

" Ibid., pp. 36, 39. 
4 



50 

siastic uttered in Anglo-French his bitter protest against this 
intolerable tax.^^ The attack on the king is more direct and 
unsparing than we usually find in these expressions of resent- 
ment against the royal policy. ** King and Pope plan how 
they make take from the clergy their gold and silver " — 

" Li roi ne I'apostoile ne pensent altrement, 
Mes coment au clers tolent lur or e lur argent." 

The use of Anglo-French in this protest might seem to 
indicate something of an appeal to the secular governing 
classes. But we find a somewhat similar complaint, in Goli- 
ardic Latin rhyme, directed against the avarice of the pre- 
lates.^^ And another goes still farther, including the king 
and his nobles in the indictment.*^ " No one is truly esteemed 
in this degenerate age unless he has sufficient cunning to 
deceive the simple. The rich are avaricious, and the poor are 
oppressed." 

But these vague and general academic complaints do not 
exhaust either in spirit or in subject-matter the satire of 
Henry's reign. The king's imbecile tyranny, his foreign 
favorites, and his intolerable taxation, led to the baronial 
league under the great Earl Simon, which achieved its victory 
of Lewes in 1264. That long historical and eulogistic Latin 
poem known as The Battle of Lewes^'^ is supplemented by 
what for us is a far more significant production. This is a 
politico-personal ballad in English,'^^ directed chiefly against 
the king's brother, Richard, Earl of Cornwall, King of the 
Romans, who was the object of much popular hatred. After 
the battle of Lewes, he fled to a windmill, which he garrisoned 
and tried to hold against the baronial army. This incident 

^ Political Songs, p. 42. 

^^ Ihid., p. 44. 

*> Ibid., p. 46. 

" Ihid., p. y2. 

" Altenglische Dichtungen. ed. Boddeker, p. 98 ; Altenglische Sprach- 
proben, ed. Maetzner, I, 152; Ancient Songs and Ballads, ed. Ritson, I, 12; 
Political Songs, p. 69 ; Reliqnes of Ancient English Poetry, Percy (1847 
ed.), p. 89. 



51 

was a fruitful source of ridicule, and now some English glee- 
man embodied it in a thoroughly popular ballad,*^ giving to us 
for the first time in satire that English speech which had sur- 
vived under Norman despotism, and now spoke again for Eng- 
lish liberty. Richard, upon his return to England in 1259, 
had attem.pted to introduce a great body of foreigners ; but 
this was resisted by the barons, and he was compelled to send 
his foreigners home again. The attempt, however, added to 
his unpopularity. When the barons were trying to come to 
an understanding with Henry III, they offered Richard thirty 
thousand pounds if he could persuade the king to agree to 
peace on their terms. Henry refused, and the sum was, of 
course, not paid. But the writer of this ballad maliciously 
makes it appear that Richard himself demanded the money. 
Windsor, the king's principal stronghold, was, to the great in- 
dignation of the English, garrisoned with foreigners, through 
Richard's aid. After the battle of Lewes, the Earl of War- 
ren, Henry's partisan, escaped across the sea to France. 

" Sit ye still and hearken to me. The King of Almaigne 
asked thirty thousand pounds to make peace in the country, 
and so he did more. Richard, though thou art ever a traitor, 
nevermore shalt thou deceive. 

" While Richard was king, he spent all his treasure upon 
luxury. He brewed evil ; let him drink it. He seized the 
windmill for a castle, brought from Almaigne many a wretched 
soul to garrison Windsor. He who let the Earl of Warrenne 
pass over the sea, did great sin. 

" Sire Simond de Mountfort hath swore bi ys chyn, 
Hevede he nou here the Erl of Waryn, 
Shulde he never more come to is yn, 
Ne with sheld, ne with spere, ne with other gyn, 

to help of Wyndesore." 

But such verse as this does not represent the most charac- 
teristic satirical product of the age. In order to see what 
direction the spirit of adverse criticism is taking in the main, 
how it is producing invective or sombre rebuke rather than 
satire,^* we have only to consider A lutel Soth sermun, writ- 



^ See catalogue of satirical genres, supra, p. 7. 
"See supra, p. 8. 



52 

ten, or rather preached, about the middle of the thirteenth 
century.^^ The poem is only one hundred lines in length, but 
it is, most significantly, in English, and was probably written 
by some friar of one of those great bodies, the Franciscans 
and Dominicans, introduced into England in 1220 and 1224 
respectively, and originally instituted to check the corruption 
of the monastic orders after the Crusades. In England the 
friars found their work in cities and towns, and among the 
poorer classes, healing the sick and performing every imagina- 
ble office of ministration, at a time when the monastic orders 
were resident mainly in the rural districts and were making 
their appeal chiefly to the aristocracy ; while the secular clergy 
were thinking of the income from their benefices rather than 
of any popular ministration. The friars were the only preach- 
ers, and here some good brother is addressing his flock in the 
vernacular. His subject-matter is entirely social, his tone 
severe and admonitory, his appeal to the lower classes : 

" We know," he says, " how Adam fell from bliss and abode 
in hell until Christ ransomed him. Into that same hell shall 
wend all backbiters, thieves, lechers, and whoremongers. But 
not merely these. Bakers and brewers, who give false meas- 
ure, make bad bread, and care not if so they get their silver 
— thither shall they also wend. All priests' wives shall be 
damned, and 

peos prude yongemen, 

)?at luuye]? Malekyn, 
And )?eos prude maydenes, 

)?at luuye]? ianekyn. 
At chireche and at chepyng; 

hwanne heo to-gadere come — 

talk but of illicit love. Yea, even when they come to church 
on holy-day. Masses and matins concern them not; they are 
thinking on Wilkin and Watkin. Robin takes Gilot to the ale 
house, where they talk and drink. He pays for her ale, and 
in the evening she goes home with him. Though her parents 
threaten to beat her, she will not give up her Robin." 

*^ An Old English Miscellany, ed. Morris, E. E. T. S., Vol. 49, p. 187. 



53 

The A Intel Soth sermun is but one of a multitude of such 
productions of this age. A Sermon is not a Satire. The most 
productive Hterary class, the only class producing anything but 
the metrical romances and the popular ballads — the clergy — 
was busily preaching the life to come. The Church was a 
foe to genuine satire. Her weapon was the sermon. 

Hwon holy chireche is vnder uote^^ is but another of this 
general type, rather more severe and denunciatory, perhaps, 
than the average. Its thirty-six lines of septenary verse are 
one lament over decadent ecclesiastical conditions — 

" Nv is holy chireche vuele vnder honde 
All hire weorrej? )?at wune]? ine londe — ." 

Of course satire finds no scope here, nor in the Poema 
Morale, nor in the dialogue between the Body and the Soul.*^ 
In the latter the Soul reproaches the Body for its luxurious 
living, in a tone sombre, heavy, moralistic, but certainly not 
satirical.^® 

Just here may well be mentioned a peculiar and interesting 
medieval genre, the Visions of Heaven and Hell. This genre 
is interesting not only in itself, but as culminating in that 
supreme Vision, the Divine Comedy. Theological in its origin, 
it became a powerful instrument in the hands of the clergy 
with its " threats of hell and hopes of paradise." In France, 
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the genre was illus- 
trated in le Songe d'Enfer and la Voie de Paradis of Raoul 
de Houdan ; and in Le Pelerinage de la Vie humaine and Le 
Pelerinage de I'ame of Guillaume de Digulleville."*® It begins 
in English literature with the frequent references in the Anglo- 
Saxon prose of Aelfric and of Wulfstan; takes more formal 
shape in Bede's Vision of Furseus and Vision of Drihthelm in 
the Ecclesiastical History ; and appears in the Cynewulfian 

" Ibid., p. 89. 

*'' Altengl., Sprachprohen, I, 92 f. 

*^ For a contrary opinion, see Haessner, p. 80. 

*® de Julleville, Tome II, 2, p. 205 f. 



54 

poems. The main source of the later EngHsh metrical visions, 
however, seems to have been the Vision of St. Paul, in Greek 
of the fourth century; from which are derived four metrical 
versions in English. The Vision of Tundale, 1149 A. D., an 
elaborate composition in 2,400 lines, presenting Hell, Purga- 
tory, and Paradise, sums up all preceding Visions. Robbers, 
murderers, and bad clergymen are placed in Hell, but treated 
sermonically, not satirically.^^ About 11 50 A. D., the famous 
St. Patrick's Purgatory continues the form, and within the 
next fifty years appear two Latin " versions " in prose ; Visions 
of the Monk of Evesham (1196), and The Vision of Thurcill 
(1206). 

Most important for our present purpose of all the English 
metrical versions is The XI Pains of Hell of the thirteenth cen- 
tury, which, together with two other versions, one by John 
Awdelay, is a rendering of the early Greek Vision of St. Paul. 
It is given by Morris in his Old English Miscellany as two 
hundred and ninety lines in length, in tetrameter verse, rhym- 
ing a a h h, with occasional lines in French.^^ In other ver- 
sions, St. Paul is conducted to Hell by the Angel Michael, 
while here the sinner returns from hell and narrates his vision 
of the eleven dreadful forms of punishment. First, he sees 
burning trees upon which are hanged the souls of those who 
in this life never went to church. In a heated oven suffer the 
maker of unjust laws and the unjust judge: 

per schule )?e saulen beo to-drawe. 
pat her arereden vnryhte lawe. 

Unchaste women, lovers of usury, suffer in a stinking pen ; 
where also are punished those who ill-treated the innocent and 
weak and robbed the poor. Those who condemned Christ to 
death stand forever in a hot pool under a deep gaol. Had a 
hundred men with teeth and tongues of steel talked from the 
time of Cain till now, they could not have told all the pains 
of Hell ! 

'^ See Becker, A Contribution to the Comparative Study of the Medieval 
Visions of Heaven and Hell, passim. 
" E. E. T. S., Vol. 49, p. 147. 



55 

The Eleven Pains of Hell may be taken as representative 
of this extraordinary and very vigorous genre. Even where 
it deals in vituperation or invective it is always quite innocent 
of humor, most sombre in coloring, didactic in purpose. Satire 
it is not even in the most remote sense ; but can scarcely escape 
slight mention in any account of English satirical verse, if only 
by the mere fact that it so clearly shows how intensely prac- 
tical literature was bound to be in the hands of ecclesiastics, 
and how incapable of real satire is sheer didacticism. Even 
A Intel Soth sermun in its faint picture of contemporary man- 
ners is too earnest to use its picture satirically ; while the Vis- 
ions of Hell and Heaven, with their mighty import and dread- 
ful message, could be nothing else but profoundly earnest and 
didactic. Perhaps more germane to our present purpose is 
the remote possibility that this genre was parodied in the 
French fabliau, li Fabliaux di Cognaigne and its celebrated 
English version, The Land of Cocakaygne. 

There is another side to the picture, however ; for some clerk 
of this period has left us a very light and humorous little poem 
directed against the tailors.^^ Its subject-matter is very gen- 
eral, without personalities or special local color, but it springs 
from something more than the ordinary commonplaces. After 
Henry's marriage with Eleanor of Provence in 1236, the 
queen's kindred poured into England, introducing foreign cus- 
toms and fashions of dress. And again, in 1243, the king was 
followed home from France by a new flood of his mother's 
kinspeople. Hence this genuine little Latin Satire, beginning 
with a witty adaptation of the opening lines of the Meta- 
morphoses: 

" In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas 
Corpora, Dii coeptis, nam vos mutastis et illas. 
Aspirate meis." 

. •' ' 

This bit of sartorial satire is the prototype of a variety that 

appears again and again in periods of extravagant fashion in 

" Political Songs, p. 51. 



56 

dress, such as those of Henry VIII and of Elizabeth. Many 
years later, toward the close of the century, in the reign of 
Edward I, this same material is again utilized, but in a very 
different spirit. The speech is now English, the motive that 
of the preacher of A luiel Soth sermun. In a few lines of 
savage rebuke, the writer inveighs against the female love of 
finery in general, and, more particularly, against the disposi- 
tion, displayed even by women of the lowest class, to follow 
prevailing fashions in dress.^^ 

Not only in such social satire^* as the preceding, but also in 
the more elaborate attack on the venality of the judges, this 
same severity of tone appears. During the absence of Edward 
I in France, from 1286 to 1290, the public service was badly 
neglected. Complaints poured in against the judges of the 
courts at Westminster, who, as the chief administrators of the 
law, were charged with violence and corruption. Edward re- 
turned to punish the offenders severely ; but, probably within 
this period of the king's absence, some very caustic critic has 
embodied his opinion of judicial venality in some one hundred 
and fifty lines of rhyming Latin. ^^ The attack is direct, but 
not without its share of rather bitter humor. " There are 
obviously judges in this land who are open to bribery," he 
says. " They send their minions, who conclude the financial 
arrangements ; and it is generally admitted that those whose 
purse-strings are tight will have to wait a long time for jus- 
tice." This complaint, though characteristically without any 
revelation of individuality, and lacking in any personalities, 
was undoubtedly evoked by contemporary abuses. It sounds 
the now familiar note protesting against the oppression of the 
poor. 

The overbearing ecclesiastical tribunals, known as the Con- 
sistory Courts, are also objects for severe attack at this same 
period. A short poem in English^^ has come down to us, in 
which some minor criminal is supposed to describe his experi- 

" Political Songs, p. 153. 

" See supra, p. 32 f. 

"^ Political Songs, p. 224. 

^* Boddeker, Altenglische Dichtungen, p. 107; Political Songs, p. 155. 



67 

ences at an ecclesiastical court in a style at first coarse and 
finally rankly vituperative. 

We must now turn aside for an instant to consider a famous 
poem whose only claim to a place just here is the fact that it 
was written within this period, probably about 1250, and per- 
haps concerns itself with ecclesiastical affairs. The Owl and 
the Nightingale,^"^ a dehat of about eighteen hundred lines in 
tetrameter couplets, is a spirited poem of the " flyting " type 
that appeared centuries later in the writings of Skelton and 
of Dunbar. So great an authority as Professor Courthope 
sees in this scolding-match an attempt " to present the oppo- 
site opinions of the strictly monastic party, on the one side, and 
of the more latitudinarian among the secular, and even the 
regular clergy, on the other." ^^ To the ordinary reader this is 
not apparent. Aside from one or two contemptuous references, 
not a trace of satire appears on the surface of the poem, at 
least, so general, so free from allusion, is its subject-matter. 

Closely related to the Satire on the Consistory Courts is the 
customary attack on the clergy. In the following instance, the 
criticism extends beyond the monastic bodies and their luxuri- 
ous and stately life at the abbeys and monasteries, and includes 
even the friars, who have now sunk into that same condition 
of iniquity which but half a century before they had endeav- 
ored to reform. This sudden and complete degeneration of 
the orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic in England is one of 
the most astounding phenomena in history. As the Franciscans 
were at first the most zealous and effective of the four orders, 
so now they seem to be singled out as special targets for 
attack, and are accused of adding hypocrisy to those other 
misdemeanors that they have in common with the monks. 

Some really witty and satirical critic of contemporary relig- 
ious conditions has left us an Anglo-French poem of about 
two hundred and fifty lines, the form of which is obviously 
an imitation of Wireker's " Novus Ordo Bumelli."^® This 

" Ed. Wright, Percy Soc. Pub., Vol. 11; ed. J. E. Wells, Belle-Lettres 
Series, 1907. 

"Courthope, History of English Poetry, I, p. 134. 

^^ Political Songs, p. 137 ; for a discussion of burlesque, see supra, p. 18 f. 



58 

master of irony knows his clergy with a degree of thorough- 
ness that must have been galling to the objects of his attack. 
" The Order of Fair-Ease " is a new fraternity of ecclesiastics, 
seeking to combine the varied excellencies of all the others. 
From the Abbey of Sempringham it has adopted the idea of 
including both brethren and sisters together in one monastery. 
Beverly has taught it how to eat and drink as long as the 
candle of eighteen inches' length continues to burn. The Hos- 
pitallers have taught the new order to dress elegantly. The 
Canons, who in self-sacrifice eat flesh in their refectory three 
days in the week ; the Black Monks, who are drunk every day 
— but for social purposes only; and the Secular Canons, who 
furnish a good example by their high esteem for ladies, and 
insist that the brethren and sisters should be constant com- 
panions both before and after matins — ^liave all contributed 
their several admirable characteristics. And so the ironical 
arraignment continues through the orders of friars, adopting 
from each brotherhood what is alleged to be its most distinc- 
tive trait. This is the first really humorous piece of religious 
satire since the Speculum Stultorum. 

Similarly burlesque in tone and belonging to this same period 
is the highly indecorous but amusing little Satire known as 
The Land of Cokaygne,^^ written in one hundred and ninety 
lines of English verse. It is directed against the monks and 
nuns, and describes an imaginary country where conditions are 
supposedly ideal — where there is plenty to eat and drink, for 
the abbeys are built of food, and the rivers flow with milk and 
wine. Best of all, the monks and nuns are afforded unlimited 
opportunities for intercourse. Unquotable as it is, this little 
Satire affords an amusing commentary on what was supposed 
to be the conventual ideal of the period. Is The Land of 
Cokaygne a parody of the medieval vision genre, as well as 
an ironical burlesque^^ on monastic sensuality ? However that 
may be, it derives, without doubt, from the French. Le Fabli- 
aux di Coquaigne describes a happy land of feasting and idle- 

^ Poems and Lives of Saints, ecL Furnivall, p. 156. 
" See supra J p. 1 8 f . 



59 

ness, where they celebrate Easter and Candlemas four times 
every year, with Lent only once in twenty years ; where the 
houses are made of turbots and salmon, the beams of stur- 
geons, and the shingles of sausages ; while the spits turn in- 
cessantly across the streets between rivers of wine !^^ 

Just as satirical, but no longer burlesque, and somewhat 
more severe, is the crude medley of religious and of class 
satire, which Dr. Furnivall entitles Of Men Lif that IVonilp 
in Lond,^^ written in English about this same time in twenty 
six-line stanzas. After ironically attacking the friars and 
monks, the writer turns against the various mercantile classes 
of his locality — tailors, sutlers, spinners, potters, bakers, and 
so on, all of whom are inveighed against in turn. Though of 
Irish origin — for the scene is ostensibly laid in Kildare — the 
satire applies only too well to the England of its period : 

" Hail be 3e prestis wi)? 3ur brode bokes 

po3 3ur crune be ischaue, fair bej? 3ur crokes 

3ow and o]?er lewiduen dele]? bot a houue. 

Whan 3e deli)? holibrede, 3ine me botte a litil 

Sikirlich he was a clerk 
)?at wrochete ]?is craftilich werke." 

But the Consistory Courts and the religious fraternities are 
not the only objects for satirical attack during the glorious 
reign of Edward I. A short poem of two versions, in Latin 
and Anglo-French respectively, speaks volumes against the 
administration of the great law-giver. It is a genuine expres- 
sion of popular discontent, an indictment against public fraud 
and oppression. Some learned clerk is feeling very pessimis- 
tic over the condition of affairs. He is too much in earnest, 
too near the objects of his attack, to indulge in superfluous 
humor, even were he capable of it — which is doubtful.^* His 
wail is echoed by another poet in a strange medley of Latin, 
English, and Anglo-Norman, who laments the oppression of 
the poor and the general corruption of the age f^ and by still 

•^ See Lenient, p. 92. 

'^ Poems and Lives of SaintSj p. 152 f. 

•* Political Songs, p. 133. ^ 

" /6id., pp. 251-252. 



60 

another, writing more elaborately, and in English, who voices 
particularly the miserable lot of the peasant :^^ 

" To entredite and amonsi 
Al thai, whate hi evir be, 
That lafful men doth robbi, 
Whate in lond what in see ; 
And thos hoblurs, namelich. 
That husbond benimeth eri of grund ; 
Men ne schold ham biri in non chirch, 
Bot cast ham ute as a hund." 

Though one grant the sincerity of these several productions, 
he must still in general regard them such as every period pro- 
duces in greater or less quantity. Far more vital than these, 
and expressing apparently a popular feeling, is a very interest- 
ing poem in English, purporting to be the complaint of a hus- 
bandman against inordinate taxation. In order to carry on 
his wars with France, Flanders, Wales, and Scotland, Edward 
I was compelled to resort to extremely heavy taxation, actu- 
ally amounting at one time in the case of the clergy to one- 
half their income ; and in that of the tenantry, to one- fourth. 
This tax fell most grievously upon the poor. What the 
wretched peasant perceived was not the glorious issue of the 
great king's projects, but his own immediate sufferings. This 
vigorous complaint seems to voice the misery of all the poor 
in England:®^ 

" Ich herde men upo mold make muche mon, 
Hou he beth i-tened of here tilyynge, 
Gode seres and corn bothe beth a-gon, 
Ne kepeth here no sawe ne no song syng. 

" Now we mote worche, nis ther non other won, 
Mai ich no lengore lyve with my lesinge ; 
Set ther is a bitterore bid to the bon, 
For ever the furthe peni mot to the kynge." 

In general this same protest is again expressed by another 

^ Ibid., p. 195 f. 

" Altenglische Dictungen, p. 100; Political Songs, p. 149. 



61 

poem^^ in mixed Latin and Anglo-French, which seems to 
refer to the king's expedition against Flanders. Characteris- 
tically, either through loyalty or for fear of the consequences, 
it blames the king's ministers, though no ruler was ever more 
responsible for his own actions than was Edward I. The king 
had, to his great joy, discovered a new source of revenue in 
fixing a heavy duty of one-tenth on all wool exported from the 
country. The stress laid upon this grievance might indicate 
the writer to have been some Cistercian monk : 

" A King should not leave his country without consent of 
the commons. Every year the fifteenth penny goes to work 
this common harm, and the common people must sell all they 
have to meet the tax. 

" Depus que le roy vodera tam multum cepisse, 
Entre les riches si purra satis invenisse ; 
E plus, a ce que m'est avys, et melius fecisse 
Des grantz partie aver pris, et parvis pepercisse. 

Qui capit argentum sine causa peccat egentum. 

To the evil counsellor, not the king, should be laid the blame 
for this. Such taxation is robbery. Let the rich be taxed, but 
spare the poor." 

But while the war with Flanders had no sympathy from the 
people, that against Scotland aroused their enthusiasm. After 
the battle of Falkirk, in 1298, some cleric, writing in Latin, 
mingles together an account of the battles with the Scotch, 
sneers at the conquered people, eulogy of Edward, and didac- 
tic moralizing. He exclaims : 



Scribo novam satyram, sed sic ne seminet iram 



"69 



The defeat of Wallace at Falkirk and the great patriot's 
execution were followed in September, 1306, by the battle of 
Kirkencliff, where Sir Simon Eraser was taken prisoner. It 
is on the execution of this Scottish leader that we have a thor- 
oughly popular ballad in English."^^ Gibes against the Scotch 

* Political Songs, p. 182. 
^^ Political Songs, p. i6o. 

""^ Altenglische Dictungen, p. 121; Ancient Songs and Ballads, i, 28; 
Political Songs, p. 212 f. 



62 

constitute its only claim to satire, for it is in effect rather a 
paean of victory. 

But the political ballad and the general social Satire do not 
entirely exhaust the satirical verse of Edward's reign. The 
pride and ostentation of his courtiers meets with a sharp pro- 
test in a short poem in English — rather disgusting, but cer- 
tainly instructive — on the retinues of the great nobles/^ Far 
more humorous is an attack on the scholastic studies of the 
universities, in Goliardic verse, written perhaps by an adherent 
of that older and broader system of instruction that had been 
displaced by the rise of scholastic theology under the friars 
in the early part of the century/^ Roger Bacon might well 
have sympathized with, or even written, this remarkably acute 
and humorous protest. But our cleric led no general revolt, 
for scholasticism continued to flourish throughout the follow- 
ing century : 

" Circa dialecticam tempus cur consumis, 
Tu qui nullos redditus aliunde sumis? 
Colat qui per patriam natus est e summis. 
Dives agro, dives positis in faenore nummis." 



73 



Entitled to a place here, chronologically, at least, are two 
successors of the Anglo-Latin satirists of one and two centu- 
ries earlier. Robert Mannyng and Richard Rolle are not by 
intention satirists, but didactic writers whose elaborate works 
very well illustrate the output of their time and class. Yet 
they deserve mention here, if only to differentiate the Hand- 
lyng Synne and The Prick e of Conscience from any genuine 
satire. 

Robert Mannyng's Handlyng Synne,'^* written perhaps in 
"^30^, was a translation into English tetrameter couplets of a 

''^ Altenglische Dictungen, p. 134; Political Songs, p. 237 f. 

" Ibid., p. 206 f. 

73 " Why do you waste your time on dialectics, you who receive no 
income from other sources ? Let the high-born cultivate it, he who is rich 
in land and in money laid out at interest." 

■'^ Ed. Furnivall, E. E. T. S., Original Series, 119 and 123. 



63 

didactic work entitled Manuel des Peschiez by a certain Wil- 
liam of Wadding-ton. The elaborate plan comprises a treatise 
on the Ten Commandments, various transgressions thereof 
being set forth by doctrine and illustrated by tales. The Seven 
Deadly Sins, the Seven Sins of Sacrilege, The Seven Sacra- 
ments, are also treated in the same fashion. The whole, while 
distinctly related to its time, in fact replete with contemporary 
matter, can lay no claim to satire. It is one of those serious 
and didactic performances which are really utterly foreign to 
the satiric temper."^^ 

No long interval elapsed between the composition of Hand- 
lyng Synne and that of Richard Rolle's The Pricke of Con- 
science J^ The " Hermit of Hampole " lived from 1290 to 
1349, and probably wrote his elaborate didactic poem at the 
very time when Lawrence Minot was so gleefully celebrating 
the triumphs of King Edward III. The difference between 
them is the difference between the court and the cloistered cell. 
The Pricke of Conscience — almost ten thousand lines long, in 
tetrameter couplets — has seven parts — Birth, Life, Death, Pur- 
gatory, The Judgment, Hell, and Paradise. The whole is one 
long sermon without humor or contemporary allusions. Of 
the two poems, Handlyng Synne is superior in human interest. 
Neither work, however, merits any elaborate treatment in the 
story of English satirical verse. 

Ill 

But if subject-matter for satire was ample in the times of 
Edward the Law-Giver, it was vastly augmented in the reign 
of his son and successor, Edward the Second, the unwise and 
unruly (i 307-1 327). Bannockburn, with its inglorious de- 
feat, in 1 3 14, followed for many years by merciless Scotch 
ravages on the Border; in 131 5-13 16, a terrible famine as a 
result of the dearth which had begun in 1289 ; and this followed 
by so great a pestilence in 1 316-13 17 that " the living scarcely 
sufficed to bury the dead " ; a dreadful murrain among the cat- 

'"^ See supra, p. 8. 

"Ed. Morris, Phil. Soc. Pub., 1863. 



64 

tie ; wheat rising from 3 pence to 10 shillings per bushel : — these 
were among the disastrous events and conditions of Edward the 
Second's reign. And all this time lasted the king's contemptible 
conduct, first with Piers Gaveston, then with the Despensers, 
which led to a war with the barons in 1322, until finally the 
queen's treacherous intrigues occasioned the fall both of the 
wretched king and his ambitious favorites. All through these 
unfortunate political conditions continued the maladminis- 
tration of justice; while the corruption of both the monastic 
and of the secular clergy, from prelate to parish priest, was a 
conspicuous and growing evil that was rapidly leading to the 
great reformatory movement under Wy cliff e half a century 
later. 

All these various conditions are summed up by an earnest 
critic, not without a sort of bitter humor, in a vernacular poem 
of almost eight hundred lines, in every respect superior to any 
preceding "Satire" — A Poem on the Times of Edward 7/,^^^ 
as it has been styled. This " poem " in its subject-matter, tone, 
and method, is so typical of its age and of its kind as to merit 
a somewhat detailed description. It sums up in itself a multi- 
tude of minor efforts. 

First of all, the Poem is social satire in its wail of protest 
against the condition of the poor, and religious satire in its 
attack on the clergy. But the political note is lacking — and 
that in an age so fruitful in matter for political satire. Still, 
if — as we assume — the poem is a popular production, there 
are obvious reasons for the absence of this note. The matter 
of primary interest to the people was their own condition. 
Famine, pestilence, and the ravages of war were too near to 
admit consideration of political affairs or perhaps any interest 
in them. Even granting that this interest existed, the people 
had scarcely learned how to express themselves. Furthermore, 
that portion of the clerical body which alone produced the 
literature of medieval England was not engaged in politics, 
and, in the main, paid little attention to political affairs ; while 
the baronial class, participating in state affairs and powerful 

"Ed. Hardwick, Percy Soc. Pub., Vol. 28; ed. Wright, Political Songs, 
p. 323. 



65 

enough to express an adverse opinion, produced no literature. 
But apart from this absence of the poHtical note, our satirist 
makes a praiseworthy effort to cover the ground, with a 
superb disregard for unity of theme, yet with redeeming vigor 
and sincerity: 

" Why werre and wrake in londe 
And manslaugt is y-come, 
Why honger and derthe on erthe 
The pour hath over-nome ; 
Why bestes beth i-storve 
And why corne is so dere, 
5e that wyl abyde, 

Lystyn and 3e mow here, 

With skyl; 
Certes without lesyng, 
Herken hit ho so wyl." 

" Gold will buy honor for a criminal. Archbishops and 
bishops, who are guardians of men's consciences, are afraid to 
condemn others, since their own lives are so impious. Arch- 
deacons are open to bribery; simony wins preferment for the 
unworthy. When a priest has once gained his benefice, he 
leaves it in the charge of a servant, while he himself goes hunt- 
ing in a far country. Abbots and priors spend their time in 
sport. We have religion enough, but no God in it. See how 
these monks punish themselves for the love of God! They 
wear socks and felt boots ; they are well fed with good flesh 
and fish, and leave little in the dish ! 

" Religion was i-maked 
Penance for to drye. 
Now it is mych i-turned 
To pryde and glotonye. 
Wer schalt thu fynde 
Redder men on lerys 
Fayrer men other fatter 
Than monks, chanouns, other freres in town? 
Forsothe ther nys non aysier lyf 

Than is religion." 

Friars are selfish and covetous, readily bribed, contemners 
of the poor, flatterers of the rich : 



66 

" 3if the rych man deyth, 
That was of grete myst, 
Then wol the freres al day 

For the cors fist. 
Hyt is not al for the calf 
That the cow loweth, 
But it is for the gode gras 
That in the mede groweth, 
By my hod ! " 

Having finished with the clergy, the satirist proceeds to in- 
dict the different classes and professions in the usual medieval 
manner — pliysicians, lawyers, barons, squires, knights, mer- 
chants, sheriffs, judges, statesmen, and others, all of whom 
thrive by imposing on the poor. 

Nothing could be more popular, more alive, in that it draws 
inspiration directly from existing conditions with which its 
author was familiar. Here are sounded the three principal 
notes of the characteristic medieval English Satire — the misery 
of the poor, the vices of the clergy from Pope to friar, the 
faults of the various professional and social classes. 

This last note is heard now for the first time, and, for a 
century or over, continues to characterize satirical poetry. Its 
origin is fairly obvious, but interesting. As a result of wider 
commercial relations, there grew up in England during the 
latter part of the reign of Edward I that great burgher class 
which was later to become the mainstay of the English nation. 
With the growth of the towns came the working gilds, giving 
each class its individual dress. These newer trade divisions, 
together with the classes resulting from chivalry — the knight, 
the squire ; and the ecclesiastical classes — the monk, the friar, 
the parish priest ; form in the early fourteenth century a society 
of rigid divisions ; each trade, art, profession, with its distinc- 
tive dress, so significant and easily distinguishable, that our 
satirist tends to endow the individual class with fixed moral 
characteristics as marked as its outward habit. Thus men are 
regarded not as individuals, but as members of a certain order. 
This lack of individuality, and consequently lack of characteri- 
zation, in medieval satire, is of course the result of well under- 



67 

stood pre-Renaissance conditions of life where the Church and 
the feudal system helped to merge the individual in his class. 

Both in its popular form and in its choice of subject-matter 
this poem on the bad times of Edward II is what might be 
expected at this period, when the national consciousness is 
growing, the voice of the people is making itself heard, and 
the Anglo-French dialect, with its limited appeal to the court 
circle, has been supplanted by the English language — the speech 
of a homogeneous nation. 

In October, 131 1, Edward II was compelled to yield to the 
demand of his nobles and grant a reconfirmation of Magna 
Charta, consenting among many other things to the banishment 
of his infamous favorite Gaveston. But the king had no 
sooner escaped from his nobles than he rejoined Gaveston and 
broke his promises. Based on these circumstances, a political 
poem of a hundred lines in English, with an admixture of 
Anglo-French, reproaches the king for his perfidy and in- 
quires into the condition of the kingdom.^^ " The king can 
make and unmake," says the poet, " but he does so too often for 
the good of the State. Our Prince of England, by the counsel 
of his people, held a great parliament at Westminster. He 
made Magna Charta of wax, as I understand, and very well 
believe, for it was holden too near the fire and is molten all 
away." 

The king's breach of faith led to the death of Gaveston in 
1 3 12, Within a few months the powerful and jealous Lancas- 
ter and that Earl of Warwick, whom the royal favorite had 
styled " The Black Dog of Ardenne," accomplished his ruin. 
He was captured and, after throwing himself at Lancaster's 
feet and pleading in vain for mercy, summarily beheaded. Two 
short Goliardic poems, parodies of hymns in the old Church 
service, attest the joy of at least the ecclesiastical contingent 
over Gaveston's fall.^^ While partly elegiac, partly celebratory 
in tone, these two poems are in effect attacks on the king and 
his policy. 

^^ Political Songs, p. 253; for the Political Satire in general, see supra, 
p. 31 f. 

*^ Political Songs, p. 258 f. 



68 

Only two years after Gaveston's execution came Bannock- 
burn. Without the consent of ParUament and apparently also 
without popular sympathy, Edward met the Scotch and was 
overwhelmingly defeated. The Earl of Gloucester was among 
the slain — through treachery, asserts the author of the Latin 
poem which is at once a description of the battle, an elegy on 
the Earl, and an attack on the king.^^ The king is charged 
with bad judgment and weakness in heeding those evil coun- 
sellors through whose venom England is poisoned. Bannock- 
burn was lost through treachery, declares the poet, and Glouces- 
ter brought to his death by these same wicked men, on whom 
the remaining nobles should take vengeance. 

Although Anglo-French has now been supplanted by Eng- 
lish, the vast preponderance of Latin shows that literature is 
still largely in the hands of ecclesiastics. This does not mean, 
however, that some Latin poems were not in a sense a popular 
product. It is necessary to distinguish between Latin produc- 
tions that are merely academic and poems, such as have just 
been considered, which are in a measure an expression of the 
sentiment of the whole people. With the growth of the towns 
and the rise of the burgher classes came a new order of things, 
which greatly influenced satirical poetry in the latter part of 
the fourteenth century. The soldiers and the free population 
of the towns gained expression for their sentiment. But great 
multitudes still were silent; and it was very long before the 
lowest class either contributed anything to this vast body of 
satirical verse or was affected by it. 

IV 

It is again in Latin that the next significant satirical verse 
is written. Twenty years had passed since the melancholy times 
of Edward II when the brilliant victories at Calais, Crecy, 
and Poitiers, cemented the English people together by a com- 
mon national pride. The satire against Scotland is now sup- 
plemented by that against France. The songs of Lawrence 
Minot, the laureate of the French and of the Scottish wars, 

" Political Songs, p. 262 f. 



69 

are eulogistic and triumphal paeans, celebrating Halidon Hill, 
the sea-fight at Sluys, the avenging of Bannockburn, the siege 
of Tournai, the victory at Crecy. Minot is in reality a glee- 
man, successor to the older English minstrels, whose songs are 
in no sense satirical but purely celebratory.^* 

England had long had no love for France, and Edward's 
pretensions to the French crown increased this customary ill- 
feeling to an exceeding bitterness that is amply manifested 
in the two political poems which follow. The first, through 
some four hundred rhyming hexameter lines, endows poor 
France with every abominable quality and extravagantly eulo- 
gizes Edward. Only a characteristic extract can give any idea 
of the vigor and the variety of epithet in this patriotic diatribe; 

** Francia, foeminea, pharissea, vigoris, idea, 
Lynxea, viperea, vulpina, lupina, Medea, 
Callida, syrena, crudelis, acerba, superba, 
Es fellis plena, mel dans latet anguis in herba, 
vSub duce Philippo Valeys, cognomine lippo, 
Amoris nomen famam cognomen et omen — ." 

The other poem, in but sixty lines of elegiac verse, is a prod- 
uct of the same spirit, though its subject-matter is rather social 
or moral than political. The Frenchman, in replying to 
charges brought against his nation by the Englishman, admits 
that his compatriots are given to excessive care of the hair, to 
efifeminacy, to afifectation, but bitterly denies the charge of 
licentiousness, and, in turn, accuses the English of being 
boors.^^ 

The form of these poems in hexameter and in elegiac verse 
stamps them as academic productions that are still an expres- 
sion of popular sentiment, of growing national consciousness 
and pride. A far more elaborate and very different order of 
political poem is the long Latin Prophecy of John of Bridling- 
ton, written about 1370 by some clerk in the service of the last 
Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford.^^ This historical 

^ Political Poems and Songs, ed. Wright, Vol. I, p. 26. 
^^ Political Poems, I, 91. 
^ Ibid., I, 123 f. 



70 

retrospect purports to be the prophecy of John of Bridlington, 
a popular saint in Yorkshire, who died in 1379. Bale says he 
had the gift of seeing visions. ^^ The poem is accompanied by 
a prose commentary appended by the supposed editor of the 
original treatise. The Prophecy is an historical narrative of 
over six hundred lines, with incidental eulogy and satire. Al- 
most the entire reign of Edward III, with its multitudinous 
events, is passed in review. The character of Edward II is 
severely handled, and Pope Clement and David Bruce are 
attacked, while Edward the Third's private character under- 
goes searching, and by no means favorable, analysis. The 
author claims that the king's sins are responsible for the evils 
now coming apace upon the country. Much of the poem is 
intentionally obscure, and much is tiresomely didactic, but, 
though in every sense an academic product, The Prophecy is 
yet significant for its interest in public affairs. 

V 

These various Latin poems utilize but a small part of the 
subject-matter afforded by their age. They emphasize, in the 
main, only the brilliant aspect of a reign that was in reality 
replete with difficult labor problems, with the oppression of the 
poor, with the corruption and venality of the clergy. A more 
complete picture was to be painted toward the close of Ed- 
ward's reign by a genuinely popular satirist^^ who voiced the 
evils of the times and proposed a remedy for them in his Vision 
of Piers the Ploughman.^^ 

To call Piers Plowman a Satire is to use the term in the 
broadest possible sense. The great allegory, through its gen- 
eral lack of humor and particularly its large constructive ele- 
ment, becomes a didactic poem,^^ a fairly complete criticism 

*^ See G. P. Krapp, The Legend of St. Patrick's Purgatory, p. 57. 

*" We are not here concerned with that perplexing and still unsettled 
question, the authorship of Piers Plowman. In the present discussion 
" Langland " signifies the author, whoever he may have been, and whether 
one or several. But cf. Manly, Mod. Phil., Vol. Ill, no. 2. 

'^^ Piers the Plowman and Richard the Redeless, ed. Skeat, 1886. 

•* See supra, p. 8. 



71 

of its age, rather than a Satire. Still, aside from the work of 
Chaucer, it represents all that its immediate period has to offer 
in place of genuine satirical poetry. For this reason, and 
because it embodies the main characteristics of previous Eng- 
lish satire, it must be considered an important link in the chain 
binding the earlier product with the consummate form of three 
centuries later. 

Beneath the outward glory of Edward the Third's reign, the 
bitter humiliation of France, the vast extension of English 
trade, the glitter of a chivalric court, the famous exploits of 
the Black Prince, lay a dreadful abyss of misery. One side, 
the brighter, is portrayed by Chaucer; the other side, the 
darker, is depicted by the author of Piers Plowman. Material 
for satirical treatment was never more plentiful, from a medi- 
eval point of view, than when the first text of Piers Plowman 
was written in 1362. In the three great realms, political, eccle- 
siastical, and social, there was no dearth of subject-matter. 
Those ecclesiastical conditions that were soon to lead to 
Wyckliffe's revolt against clerical corruption and papal tyranny, 
ever increasing since the reign of John; those political 
conditions of royal misrule and oppression that were finally 
to lead to the deposition of Richard II ; those social condi- 
tions that were to arouse the Peasant's Revolt in 1381 — all 
surrounded this sombre champion of popular rights, and are 
mirrored in his verse. The subject-matter forming the staple 
of Langland's theme, though almost inextricably confused, 
may yet be divided into these three classes. This strange but 
powerful medley forms the epitome of every Satire of signi- 
ficance that we have yet considered. 

Langland's allegorical form of narrative, with its innumera- 
ble personified abstractions, perhaps resulted from the influence 
of the Roman de la Rose, at this time highly popular in Eng- 
land. Langland undoubtedly utilizes the satire on beggars and 
idlers which Jean de Meung puts into the mouth of False- 
Seeming. The French poet clothes False-Seeming in the gar- 
ment of a friar, and directs some of his sharpest satire against 
the Franciscans and other ecclesiastical orders ; and perhaps this, 



72 

too, gave hints to Langland. But the poet of Piers Plowman 
makes no use of that bitter and pitiless satire on women with 
which the Roman de la Rose was so replete as to elicit a reply 
in the Champion des Dames of Martin Franc. Jean de 
Meung's Duenna furnished valuable suggestions to Chaucer, 
however, and perhaps the whole of the Frenchman's satire 
against women had its influence in England. It is impossible 
to say how much of the later English product was influenced 
by the Roman de la Rose. 

Langland's form of allegory, closely related to Jean de 
Meung's, has little in common with that of the Speculum Stul- 
forum. It needs no prologue to render a hidden meaning 
apparent. But while admirable for didactic purposes, it is 
rather too cumbersome a garment for the swiftly-moving Muse 
of Satire. This allegorical form becomes effective as a vehicle 
for satire only when its personifications are genuine charac- 
terizations, individuals. Langland has achieved characteriza- 
tion in his pictures of Avarice and of Gluttony, which are so 
true to nature that they become not merely types of avarice 
and gluttony, not merely class representatives, but ^eal indi- 
viduals. Apart, however, from these two lifelike figures, and 
a certain amount of individuality in that of Lady Meed, there 
is no life in the abstractions called Falsehood, Conscience, 
Reason, and others, that stalk through the first few cantos of 
the poem. From these frequently dull and platitudinous cantos, 
we pass to something far more vital and interesting. The fig- 
ure of Piers Plowman has actual vitality; he is a character, 
not a personified abstraction. 

The allegorical form is essentially constructive and didactic, 
and hence unfitted in its very nature for satirical purposes. It 
is also too abstract, while satire is essentially realistic.^^ 
Wherever Langland grows really satirical, he merges abstrac- 
tions in pictures of actual life with its varied types. His alle- 
gorical form springs from prevailing literary influences, and 
results in a unique adaptation of a very abstract method to 
very realistic material. In English satire this form is entirely 
without either precedent or subsequent influence. 

•^ See supra, p. 14. 



73 

In his moral satire, Langland uses two distinct methods. 
In the first, as has been seen, he personifies some abstraction ; 
in the second, he arraigns society by its classes — a thoroughly 
medieval point of view, already somewhat exemplified in the 
poem on the times of Edward 11.®^ 

The first method is perennial, but Langland's use of it is 
distinctly medieval. The classical satirists habitually inveigh 
against single vices, yet never against abstractions. They 
select an individual, real or imaginary, who is supposed to 
embody some particular foible, and that person is made to live 
before our eyes. But the medieval satirist either attacks the 
special vice entirely in the abstract, or attempts to endow it 
with a kind of factitious life by personification. It has been 
seen how such personifications, under the touch of genius, may 
rise into actual characterization, until, indeed, they become the 
Sir Epicure Mammon and Sir Giles Overreach of centuries 
later. But in the main Langland's figures are mere names. 
We have Simony, who is a shame to Holy Church and a vexa- 
tion to the people, and is of all men most familiar with Lady 
Meed ; ,and Bribery, personified as Lady Meed, the principal 
figure in the first four cantos of the poem, who is most splen- 
didly clothed in the finest furs adorned with all manner of 
precious stones, of ravishing array, and is as familiar in the 
Pope's palace as Holy Church herself. We have, too, the 
Seven Deadly Sins. One of these, Sloth, has been priest and 
parson passing thirty winters, yet can neither sing nor read 
saints' lives. He can find a hare in field or furrow better than 
he can construe one phrase in the Beatitudes. 

But the satire against classes, both ecclesiastical and social, 
is more elaborate and certainly, in the main, more effective. 
The idle classes are objects of Langland's severe rebuke. It 
is part of his ideal social system that such people should be 
made to work. Hunger will bring them to reason, he argues. 
And this Hunger does, in a wonderful scene where he seizes 
and almost destroys the horde of idle vagabonds who are wast- 
ing the substance of honest Piers Plowman. Not only the idle 

®" See supra, p. 64 f. 



74 

classes but those who Hve by fraud, such as Knights, Clerks, 
Sizers, and Summoners ; Sheriffs, Beadles, Bailiffs, and Brok- 
ers of Merchandise; Victuallers and Advocates, are held up 
to contumely. Summoners, Deans, Archdeacons, and Regis- 
trars, are ordered to serve Simony ; Friars are drawn in a cart 
made by Liar. It is asserted that of all men Brewers, Bakers, 
Butchers, and Cooks most harm the poor people who buy in 
small quantities. Reason will not have pity till Clerks be covet- 
ous to feed the poor ; till Bishops spend their money on beggars 
rather than horses, and on the poor Orders rather than hawks 
and hounds. Even the Pope is not spared, for he is counselled 
by Reason to take pity on Holy Church and, ere he give grace, 
first govern himself. Sergeants-at-the-Bar, who plead only for 
pence and pounds, never for love of our Lord ; Chaplains, who 
may be chaste, but are withal lacking in charity ; Priests, whom 
avarice hath bound ; Pardoners, who by special license from 
the Pope, sell pardons, but are themselves unchaste ; Parsons 
and Parish Priests, who live away from their cures ; Bishops 
and even Novices, both masters and doctors, who, instead of 
preaching, praying, and feeding the poor, live in London and 
take secular occupation for the sake of gain; Friars, who 
preach for their own profit and have become mere pedlers of 
articles to please the women ; Pilgrims and Palmers, who jour- 
ney to Rome and Campostella and visit the shrine of every 
saint save Truth ; Hermits who carry their wenches about with 
them ; and Jesters and Jugglers, who behave in an unseemly 
fashion — all these figures mingle in that motley throng which 
moves on the plain called Life; that plain lying between the 
Castle of Truth and the Bottomless Pit, stretching out inimita- 
bly in the Dreamer's vision until its distances are lost in mist. 
Its life is fantastic, yet real. Through it we move as if our- 
selves in dream. The shapes are sometimes sharply defined, 
again indistinct in the twilight. The hour is always gray 
dawn, when the mist has not yet lifted, or near eventide, when 
it is about to descend from the Malvern hills upon the plain. 

But while classes and abstractions are usually satirized 
each apart from the other, they are often enough associated. 



75 

Liar is rescued and welcomed by the Pardoners, desired 
by the Leeches, housed for a while by the Minstrels, but 
finally possessed by the Friars. Lady Meed is received 
at Westminster right royally. She is honored by all, and 
consoled by some of the Justices, who hasten to her bower. 
A Confessor, clothed as a Friar, offers to absolve her ; though 
she has poisoned Popes, as Provisors know. Sizers and Sum- 
moners praise her ; and Sheriffs were ruined without her. She 
so clothes the Commissary of the Consistory Courts, and his 
Clerks, that she ever escapes punishment. She installs ignor- 
ant Bishops, provides for parsons, permits Priests to have con- 
cubines, and corrupts the Justices of the Law with her jewels. 

Throughout this satire both on classes and on abstractions, 
mingled confusedly at every step of the way, are charges 
against Church, State, and society at large. The Church is 
criticized through its hierarchy, from Pope to mendicant Friar, 
among whom Simony reigns supreme. Absentee clergy, and 
those " provisors," foreigners appointed by the Pope to Eng- 
lish benefices, are bitterly assailed. " Corruption," cries Lang- 
land, " has pervaded every branch and order of the Church ; 
luxury and power have bred contempt for the poor; heavenly 
things are neglected for temporal ; hypocrisy, sensuality, and 
greed, have eaten up the ecclesiastical body." But all this is 
merely an epitome of the charges that previous satirists, since 
the time of Walter Map, have been urging against the clergy. 
It shows the state of affairs to be worse than ever — the darkest 
part of the night before the first faint dawn of the Wycliffian 
protest. 

The State, in turn, is most severely blamed for its corrupt 
law-courts. Westminster is the supposed seat of justice, but 
there Meed is the favorite companion of Judges. Under 
officers of state, Sheriffs and the like, also receive bribes and 
oppress the poor. Finally, the people, including almost every 
social order, are infected with manifold vices. The best type 
of all is the honest farmer, and he is oppressed by the upper 
classes. 

Now the remedy for all these unhappy conditions in Church, 



76 

State, and Society, is no revolution in the existing ecclesiastical, 
political, or social systems ; no abolition of the old order in any 
respect; but only the application of one great righteous prin- 
ciple — Love or Right-Dealing. This is the positive and con- 
structive element in Piers Plowman. Langland exposes un- 
sparingly and minutely all the abuses he sees about him, and 
proposes as the remedy the simple but fundamental precept of 
common brotherhood. Perhaps the larger part of the poem is 
taken up with this constructive element, simply didactic, ser- 
monic. By no possible definition could such constructive pass- 
ages as these be termed in any sense satirical; they are purely 
didactic, and entirely without humor.®^ 

But Langland not only makes an immense step in advance 
in his wide range of subject-matter and his portrayal of types 
transcending mere abstractions ; he also marks a new era in his 
brief but graphic pictures of contemporary life. Here and 
there, throughout the Dreamer's Vision, are scattered those 
vivid genre pictures which seem the only concrete realities 
amid a world of shadows, and which show a marvelous famil- 
iarity with common life and an equally marvelous power in 
portraying it. The tone is sometimes sympathetic, as when the 
poet touches upon the plain fare and simple life of the agricul- 
tural laborer.^* Again, we have pictures full of life and color, 
startling in their realism, as in the description of a London 
crowd.^^ Sometimes the poet's touch is purely satirical, as in 
the description of the confession of Gluttony, who on his way 
to be shriven is thus enticed by Beton, the brewster: 

" ' I haue gode ale, gossib,' quod she • ' glotown, wiltow 
assaye? ' 
' Hastow au3te in ]>i purs • any bote spices ? ' 

^' Among these constructive passages are the speech of Repentance to 
Avarice (P. 5, 1. 276 f.), and to the other sinners ; Piers Plowman's instruc- 
tions to the Knight (P. 6, 1. 38 f.) ; the admonitions given by Hunger 
(P. 6, 1. 215) ; the conversation between the Dreamer and Holy Church 
about Truth, Conscience, and Charity (P. i, entire) ; the appeal of Con- 
science to the King against Lady Meed (P. 3, 1. 229) ; and almost the entire 
eighth passus. 

^ Passus 6, 11. 282-97. 

*' Prologue, 11. 216-30. 



77 

* I have peper and piones,' quod she • ' and a pounde of 
garlike, 
A ferthyngworth of fenel-seed for fastyngdayes.' " 



d6 



Glutton yields. He finds in the shop, Eis the shoemaker, 
Wat the warrener and his wife, Tim the tinker, and two of 
his prentices, Hick the hackneyman, Hugh the needle-seller, 
Clarice of Cock Lane, the clerk of the church. Daw the ditcher, 
and others, among whom are a fiddle-player, a ratter, a sweeper 
of Cheapside, and a rope-maker. They hold wassail. Glutton 
gets dead drunk, is carried home by Clement the Cobbler, put 
to bed, and wept over by his wife and daughters. In this is 
illustrated the characterization of Gluttony, already referred 
to more than once ; the picture of contemporary life, and the 
satire on the vice of drunkenness. 

In addition to such contemporary pictures as these, Langland 
alludes to the pestilences and storms that had recently devas- 
tated the country ; to the awful visitations of the Black Death 
in 1349 and succeeding years, and the terrible phenomena pre- 
ceding them — all of which he affirms to be a punishment for 
sin.®^ Again, he mentions the sufferings of the English sol- 
diery in the recent Norman campaign, closed by the Treaty of 
Bretigny in 1360;^^ and, referring to the religious fervor that 
led 

" — folk to goon on pilgrimages 
and palmers for to seken straunge strondes 
To feme halwes, couthe in sondry londes — ," 

he raises a cry against the money loss to the kingdom result- 
ing from such follies, and has Reason rule that the shrine of 
St. James be brought from Campostella to where the poor sick 
lie in prisons and on cots.®^ 

Thus in range of subject-matter, in characterization, in 
attention to contemporary events, in pictures of the life of his 
time, Langland advances far beyond his predecessors. It is in 

"P. 5, II. 310-13. 
"P. 5, 11. 13-20. 
"«P. 3, 11. 188-207. 
"P. 4, 11. 126-133. 



78 

the final and very vital feature of humor that he is perhaps 
lacking. The Malvern Dreamer is no humorist. Humor of a 
certain kind he has — the rather bitter humor of a stern moral- 
ist who is half indignant, half sorrowful, but a humor some- 
times faintly gleaming through his sombre allegory like 
glimpses of the sun through the Malvern mist. It springs 
most frequently from the satirist's perception of the incon- 
gruity between practice and profession, and the futility of mere 
external observances: 

*' Pilgrymes and palmers • plishted hem togidere 
To seke seynt lames • and seynts in rome • 
Thei went forth in here wey * with many wise tales, 
And hadden leue to lye* al here lyf after." ^^^ 

Again, the shaft is directed against social classes, by 
means of that association with abstractions, already noticed, 
as when the Summoners are saddled as palfreys for the use 
of Simony and of Civil ;^^^ and as when Falsehood flees for 
refuge to the Friars, Guile is sheltered by the Merchants, Liar 
is tenderly cared for by the Leeches and the Minstrels.^^^ 

But the most subtle piece of satirical humor, and also the 
most genuine satire, in Piers Plowman, is the following: 

Having made confession, a great multitude were seeking for 
Truth. After devious wanderings, they met a man in a pil- 
grim's guise. He bore tokens from Sinai, Rome, and Galacia. 
They asked him whence he came: 

'* ' Fram synay,' he seyde, ' and f ram owre lordes sepulcre ; 
In bethleem and in babiloyne • I haue ben in bothe. 
In ermonye, in Alisaundre • in many other places. 
3e may se bi my signes • ]?at sitten on myn hatte, 
pat I haue walked ful wyde * in wete and in drye. 
And souste gode seyntes • for my soules helth.' " 

" Knowest thou ought of a saint that men call Truth?" he 
is asked. " Nay, so God help me," said the man, " never heard 
I palmer ask after him till now ! " ^^^ 



"» Prologue, 11. 46-9. 
"^P. 2, 11. 161-82. 
"^ P. 2, 11. 210-32. 
^°'P. 5,11. 518-43. 



79 

The Vision of Piers the Plowman represents a period of 
change, when revolution or reform was imminent in every 
estate of the realm. The conditions leading to these changes 
are faithfully mirrored by Langland, though the only reform 
he would institute is that wrought by love as an active princi- 
ple. The application of this moral theory introduces into his 
work that vast constructive element which partly distinguishes 
the didactic poem from the Satire. ^^* The general lack of 
humor, fatal in a later age to the pretension of any poem claim- 
ing to be considered as satirical, is yet so characteristic of Eng- 
lish satirical poetry before the Renaissance that the objection 
in this case cannot well be urged. We have seen something 
of the nature of Langland's infrequent humor. Such as it is, 
it yet marks an advance beyond much that has gone before. 
But The Vision of Piers Plowman illustrates a still more strik- 
ing progress by its faithful and graphic pictures of contem- 
porary life, its few yet admirable character studies, and the 
vast range of its subject-matter — which sounds every note 
struck through the two preceding centuries. Beyond this, it 
is popular, vital, and spontaneous ; no result of literary tradi- 
tions, but the direct and seemingly inevitable product of exist- 
ing conditions. ^^^ 

^°* See supra, p. 8. 

^"^ The second part of The Vision — Do Wei, Do Bet, and Do Best — is 
rather a tedious piece of work, the good qualities of which all appear in 
The Vision itself. For our present purpose it may safely be disregarded. 



CHAPTER III 
From Langland's Imitators to Chaucer 

Pierce the Plowman s Crede, — Satire under Richard II. — The Peasants' 
Revolt. — Its record in verse. — Gower's Vox Clamantis, — His Tripartite 
Chronicle. — Lollardry. — The Lollard satire. — Burlesque on the Council of 
London. — The Complaint of the Plowman. — Jack Upland. — Sir John Old- 
castle. — Occleve's poem on Oldcastle. — A later poem on Oldcastle. — " Satir- 
ical commonplace " in this reign. — Gower's poem on the reign of Richard 
II. — His Confessio Amantis. — Richard the Redeless. — Personal satire in 
allegorical form. — Satire in the poems of Chaucer. — Distinction between 
Chaucer and other satirists of his time. — His subject-matter. — His methods. 
— Satire in the General Prologue. — Social types. — Satire in the interludes. — 
Satire in the Tales. — The Pardoner. — The Wife of Bath. — The Monk's 
Tale. — The Continental fabliau. — Fabliaux in England before Chaucer. — 
Chaucer's fabliaux. — The Nonne Preestes Tale. — The Friar's Tale. — The 
Summoner's Tale. — The Canon Yeoman's Tale. — Sir Thopas. — The House 
of Fame. — Satire in the minor poems of Chaucer. — Chaucer's unique quali- 
ties as a satirist. — His isolated position. 

The Vision of Piers the Plowman exercised an immense 
popular influence that resulted in the adaptation of its name 
to very different and far inferior productions.^ Among other 
imitations, so-called, is Pierce the Plowman' s Crede^ which 
was written about 1394, fifteen years after the final text of 
Langland's poem. The imitation is confined mainly to title 
and metre, but includes also a certain similarity of subject- 
matter. Though less effective and elaborate, it is the same 
expression of the common feeling and the same appeal, in turn, 
to the popular sentiment. In homely speech, a simple country- 
man describes his efforts to find some truly spiritual man who 
can teach him his Creed. The theological knowledge at this 
time demanded of a layman was extremely simple and clearly 
defined. A knowledge of Creed, Pater Noster, Ave Mary, 

^ How the Plowman learned his Pater Noster (Reliquice Antiques, ed. 
Wright, Vol. I, p. 43) is a humorous fabliau without any relation to the 
Vision. 

^ Ed. Skeat, E. E. T. S., Vol. 30. 

80 



81 

and Commandments, was indeed imperative; but any further 
knowledge was resented by the Church. 

" May Christ speed this beginning," says the Plowman ; " I 
have learned my Pater Noster and Ave Mary, but not yet my 
Creed. I seek some good man to teach it me. Many have I 
questioned diligently, but they are as ignorant as I. First of 
all, sought I the friars. I went in turn to the Franciscans, the 
Dominicans, the Carmelites, and the Austin Friars ; but all they 
did was to abuse one another. They knew nothing of religion, 
and evidently the truth was not in them. Because I had no 
money, they called me a fool, and bade me go my way. At 
last I found a poor ploughman and told my trouble. ' Trust 
not the friars,' said he ; ' the devil founded them. They are 
the kindred of Cain, hypocrites who make great display, but 
whose father is Satan. They persecuted Wyckliffe, have for- 
gotten the precepts of Christ — nay, not a single one of the Beat- 
itudes do they exemplify. The monks are but little better.' 
* Pierce,' I begged, ' tell me thy Creed.' ' Believe on God, his 
Son, the Holy Ghost, the Church ' — and so he taught me." 

In Pierce the Plowman's Crede, the satire is exclusively 
religious and the attack is against the friars alone. The simple 
irony of the tone is not ineffective, though towards its close 
the poem grows seriously didactic. The extreme realism of 
its descriptions, which would seem to preclude much exaggera- 
tion, indicate a minimum of the " satirical commonplace." 
Such an attack on the four mendicant orders is all the more 
bitter in that the friars, having begun as actual beggars, ap- 
pealing to the people at large, and living entirely on alms, had 
now achieved wealth and vast influence. Yet still they main- 
tained the fiction of mendicancy — an arrant kind of fraud that 
provoked the indignation of the moralist and invited the attack 
of the satirist of the period. 

The plowman of Langland, the honest, hard-working peas- 
ant, is here again — in Pierce the Ploivman's Crede — the type 
of the truly spiritual man. In this conception there is some- 
thing strangely incongruous at this time of the Peasant Revolt. 
The latter was a political rebellion, aroused by long oppression 
6 



82 

on the part of the nobility and of certain monasteries, and pre- 
cipitated by intolerable taxation. It was far from being a 
religious crusade, and could not have afforded a very favorable 
idea of the spirituality of men who brutally murdered the 
Prior of St. Edmundsbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
and the Lord Chief Justice of England. But it should have 
impressed upon the upper classes some conception of the spir- 
itual needs of the people. However sympathetic and ideally 
true this exaltation of the peasant from the religious stand- 
point, at this era it must have seemed to the aristocrat pecu- 
liarly ironical. 

During the early years of Richard the Second's unhappy 
reign, there were growing two quite distinct, but somewhat 
analogous, movements ; one political, which finally led to the 
Peasants' Revolt ; the other ecclesiastical, which resulted in 
the religious agitation of the Lollards. Since the early part of 
the century, that spirit which broke out in the violent attack 
made by the villeins on the Abbey of St. Edmundsbury in 1327 
had been fed by continued oppression on the part of the upper 
classes and by the heavy tax burdens resulting from the unfor- 
tunate foreign ventures following the Peace of Bretigny in 
1360; and had been encouraged by the unjust and totally un- 
reasonable Statute of Laborers, which flew in the face of every 
economic law. All these causes, together with the peasants' 
increased realization of power after the depopulation caused 
by successive ravages of the plague, operated in producing 
that terrible uprising among the Kent and Essex people in 
1381 known as '' Wat Tyler's Rebellion." 

If the peasant class was led by these events of the summer 
of 1 381 to produce any political verse beyond John Ball's dog- 
gerel rhymes, such verse has not been preserved any more than 
the songs of the French Jacquerie in the same century.^ The 

"See Lenient, Ch. XIII. The rise of the French peasants about iioo 
A. D. survives in the song of the peasants in Wace's Roman de Rou: 

" Nos sumes homes cum il sunt, 
Tels membres avum cum il unt, 
Et altresi granz cors avum, 
Et altretant sofrir poum." (See Lenient, pp. 11 and 12.) 



83 

conservative side, however, is represented by two surviving 
poems, which ring with indignation against the presumption 
of the peasantry. Both writers, though utterly opposed to the 
rebelHon and out of sympathy with the lower classes, yet admit 
that the kingdom is in a deplorable condition. The first poem, 
in a kind of doggerel verse of alternate English and Latin 
lines, asserts that the poll-tax was at the bottom of the trouble.* 
The second poem is a mere lamentation over the state of the 
kingdom and the death of the good prelate Sudbury, who lost 
his life in the struggle. 

Probably belonging to this period, and connected with the 
rebellion, is a Satire on the Men of Stockton,^ written by some 
monk addressing himself in leonine verse against the serfs of 
his monastery at Stockton. They have risen against their 
masters, but have lost their case in the law-courts. The writer 
naturally rejoices over their defeat, but his Satire clearly shows 
the terrific and widespread struggle between the peasantry and 
the land owners of the fourteenth century. Its various allu- 
sions to *' Allan " and " Robert " and " William " perhaps refer 
to quite imaginary persons. The burlesque of the Council 
held by the leaders, and their subsequent defeat, reminds us 
somewhat of the Lollard poem on the famous Council of 
London.^ 

It was soon after the Peasants' Revolt, and inspired by that 
event, that Gower produced his sombre and elaborate Latin 
poem, Vox Clamantis.'' Gower is thoroughly a didactic poet, 
and the present poem, though mainly destructive in its criti- 
cism, is often didactic too. Absolutely devoid of humor, it 
employs argument rather than invective to enforce its moral, 
and though occasioned by specific circumstances, is but very 
general in its criticism. The Vox Clamantis, in short, all 
through its ten thousand morally admirable — and fatiguing — 
verses manifests the same spirit that shows itself in English 

* Political Poems, I, 224. 

"Wright's title; see Anecdota Literaria, pp. 49-51. 

* See infra, p. 87. 

' For this and other of Gower's poems treated here, see The Works of 
John Gower, ed. Macaulay, 4 vol., Oxford, 1 899-1 902. 



84 

didactic poetry throughout its history — in that of Wither, for 
instance, in a later age. Gower, with country seats in both 
Kent and Essex, is in the very midst of the rebelHon. But his 
sympathies are far from being with the rebels. Quite the con- 
trary. He is something of a courtier, much more of a moral- 
ist ; stands aside from the course of events, reflects, and finally 
delivers himself of this treatise on the condition of the State. 
Very much of the English character is in the poem. The 
tendency to analyze, to draw a moral, to instruct, as well as 
the interest in public affairs and the daring utterance, are 
characteristic of the race as well as of the man. 

Gower sees in the recent rebellion the effect of certain causes 
into which he purposes to inquire. A description of the revolt 
under an allegorical guise, in which the peasants are likened 
to wild beasts, is but an occasion for an elaborate inquiry into 
its sources. The poet reaches the conclusion that the whole 
calamity is a visitation from God for the sins of the country. 
The subject-matter for criticism is now shifted to the immoral- 
ities of the various classes of society. The idea that chance 
rules the destinies of men is argued out of existence, to the 
poet's satisfaction, and replaced by the demonstration that 
man's free-will alone orders his destiny. At great length, 
Gower inveighs against the vices of the clergy. The com- 
plaints are conventional, but strongly urged. They are the 
charges that began in the twelfth century and have since fur- 
nished inexhaustible food for satire. Gower is implacably 
stern, and holds the clergy, as the supposed spiritual guides 
and examplars of the people, accountable for the nation's im- 
morality. If the shepherd be false, he cries, how can the sheep 
be true ? " The hungry sheep look up and are not fed." He 
deals at length with the cloistered clergy, the monks, and also 
the friars ; ending with a reference to Wireker's " Novus Ordo 
Burnelli " ; and a contention that the " Order of the Ass " is 
now the dominant one. After the clergy have been sufficiently 
reproved, the soldier, the serf, the merchant, the lawyer, and 
the officers of the law, are treated in turn, according to the 
methods of the now conventional '' class satire." Each class 



85 

is weighed and found wanting ; but Gower is not without hope 
that the country may be redeemed by a moral purgation. The 
Vox Clamantis is so largely a compilation from Ovid, Alex- 
ander Neckham, and Nigellus Wireker,^ that one wonders how 
far it may be trusted as a picture and criticism of contem- 
porary life. 

Gower 's Tripartite Chronicle, a supplement to the Vox Cla- 
mantis, written after the accession of Henry IV, is in leonine 
hexameters, and divided into three parts. Part I. — Human 
Work — is a narrative of the events of 1 387-1 388, in which 
Richard II figures as the villain; Gloucester (the Swan), 
Arundel (the horse), and Warwick (the bear), as the heroes. 
Part II. — Hellish Work — details the eight following years of 
Richard's miserable reign and the tragic fate of the three great 
dukes; while Part III. — Work in Christ — narrates the coming 
of Henry Bolinbroke and the downfall and wretched end of 
Richard. Although sixteen years intervened between the com- 
position of Vox Clamantis and of its sequel, the two are writ- 
ten in an identical spirit. But the later poem, though largely 
and fearlessly personal, loses in dignity as a polemic in that it 
was written after the conditions it arraigns had ceased to exist. 

But apart from this more or less direct expression in verse, 
the Peasants' Revolt holds another interest for us depending 
on its connection, so the opponents of Lollardry asserted, with 
the ecclesiastical movement led by Wycliffe. For the time 
being this movement was equally unsuccessful, but in the end 
it contributed to the religious emancipation of the kingdom. 

The growing national sense in England, intensified by Ed- 
ward the Third's foreign victories, further increased that 
resentment against papal domination which had been accumu- 
lating for at least two centuries. Wycliffe voiced this common 
feeling and also the old complaint of the State against the 
wealth of the Church, which he deprecated not as a political 
but as a religious evil. At first John of Gaunt, for reasons 
of his own, lent his active support to Wyckliffe personally, 
until the great schoolman, advancing far beyond his original 

* See The Works of John Gower, ed. Macaulay, Vol. 4, Introduction. 



86 

position, uttered his heresy against transubstantiation, and 
stood heroically alone. Wycliffe's itinerant preachers, later 
very generally distributed over the country, vigorously preached 
greater purity of life among the clergy and the spiritual bene- 
fits arising from clerical poverty ; and thus gained for the new 
movement a large and rapidly increasing following among the 
people. Alarmed by the vigor of the heretical sect, the Church 
began those active measures for its suppression which took 
shape at first in the attempted trial of Wyckliffe by the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury and that energetic bigot, Courtenay, 
Bishop of London, at Westminster, in 1377. The riot that 
followed the attempt postponed the affair, and meanwhile 
occurred the Peasants' Revolt, which afforded an excellent 
opportunity for clergy of the anti-Wycliffite party to cast 
additional slurs upon the Reformer and his followers, by 
asserting that Lollardry had been at the bottom of the recent 
uprising ; that John Ball was a Lollard ; and Wycliffe a pro- 
moter of sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion. 

It was in 1381 that the first protest in verse appeared, in 
some six hundred lines of academic Latin, the work of a con- 
servative friar.^ Heretofore religious satire had come from 
the advocates of reform against the dominant ecclesiastical 
bodies. Now it comes from a member of one of those bodies 
against a religious sect, a species of the satire that is to con- 
tinue for three centuries and over — the strife between Catholic 
and Protestant, High Churchman and Puritan, Episcopalian 
and Dissenter, from the fourteenth through the eighteenth 
century. 

" Lord, root out from Thy garden these noxious tares, the 
Lollards ! " prays the orthodox friar. " These Lollards, out- 
wardly meek, within are ravening wolves, arousing strife 
among the clergy, destroying the peace of the kingdom — " : 

" Johannes Balle hoc docuit, 
Quando morti succubuit 
Propter suam nequitiam. 
Quod quidem nidus tenuit 
Pullos pravos, et aluit 

* Political Poems, i, 231. 



87 

In regni ignominiam. 
Monstrans Wycleffe familiam, 

Causam brigae primariam, 
Quae totum regnum terruit. 

Praebens experientiam 
Quam gravidam stultitiam 

Haec secta vulgus inbuit."^** 

The various heresies of the Lollards are enumerated, and it 
incidentally appears that our satirist's ire is chiefly aroused by 
the bitterness, as he alleges, of their slanderous attacks upon the 
friars ! This union of personal and religious invective gains 
its vitality and interest from its source of inspiration in burn- 
ing contemporary issues. It represents the orthodox party, 
but has its counterpart in favor of the Lollards in a Latin poem 
on the Council of London, written probably in the year follow- 
ing that event.^^ 

In May, 1382, an ecclesiastical council, presided over by 
Courtenay, now Archbishop of Canterbury, met in London to 
pronounce judgment on the various heresies of the Wycliff- 
ites. A terrible earthquake that occurred on the day of assem- 
bly was said by the Lollards to announce the wrath of God on 
the Prelates and persecutors ; but Courtenay interpreted it 
with an opposite signification, and coolly pursued his course 
amid the terror of his colleagues. At this time one of the now 
chronic recurrences of the plague was thinning the population, 
and floods in the previous December had wrought widespread 
havoc. All these circumstances are utilized by our Lollard 
poem, which begins with a lugubrious wail over the condition 
of England. " Pestilence, earthquake, wind, and flood, have 
lately attested the anger of God at the wickedness of the 
people. The nation is desperately depraved, for the impiety 
of prelates, monks, and friars, has vitiated the whole kingdom. 
That all this is true of the Benedictines, also, I know by ex- 

10 " This fact John Ball taught us before he died for his iniquity ; because 
that nest held bad chickens and nourished them for the degradation of the 
country, showing that the brood of Wycliffe was the first cause of the 
rebellion that terrified the whole kingdom, giving evidence with what mis- 
erable folly this sect hath imbued the vulgar." 

^ Monumenta Franciscana, Vol. i, p. 591 f ; Political Poems, i, 253. 



88 

perience ; for I spent my novitiate among them, but escaped in 
time. Wycliffe has attacked these iniquities, and is therefore 
persecuted." The writer now passes into a burlesque account 
of the London council^^ assembled to try the heretics. 
Wycliffe, being ill, was represented by his chief lieutenant, 
Nicholas of Hereford. 

" John Welles opened fire upon the Lollards in a pompous, 
senseless speech, which Nicholas of Hereford confuted with 
ease," says the poem. " But the attack was continued by Goy- 
doun, a layman clothed like a monk, and by Crophorne, with 
his worthless jargon. After the monks, began the friars. A 
Franciscan named Merton chattered like a raven, and Whop- 
pelode, a famous liar, talked to no purpose " — and so on, 
through the remainder of the controversy, in which the Lol- 
lards are, of course, finally triumphant. The charges so elab- 
orately urged against the clergy are in substance those brought 
by previous satire of this type, but the remarkable feature of 
the poem is the change of tone from invective to burlesque 
when the writer describes the ecclesiastical council. 

This burlesque is interesting as the satirical picture of an 
actual event, and as, in a measure, a personal Satire on the 
various anti-Wyclifiite clergy. There is a distinct gain, too, 
in the humor of the latter part, though the whole is inferior 
in this respect to a contemporary English song against the 
friars. The latter was written probably by some Lollard ; for 
at this time the friars were the especial objects of Lollard 
attack. ^^ The tone of this song is at first ironical, finally 
directly satirical, yet throughout of considerable humor. 
" Friars are given to heavy penance," cries the ironical Lol- 
lard ; " one may see as much in their appearance. I have lived 
forty years, and ne'er saw I fatter men. Shameful it is that 
they should be compelled to seek their bread from house to 
house — these poor mendicants ! With them they carry articles 
to please the women ; let the goodman beware ! Clever traders 
they are and drive a hard bargain, but they know not virtue. 

^ Cf. p. 83, supra. 

^ Monument a Franciscana, i, 601 f , ; Political Poems, i, 263. 



89 

Verily, for a pair of shoes, they will absolve a man for the 
murder of all his kindred. Hell is so filled with friars that 
soon no room will be left for other people " : 

** Ful wysely can thai preche and say ; 
But as thai preche no thing do thai. 
I was a frere ful many a day, 
Therefor the sothe I wate. 
Bot when I sawe that thair lyvyng 
Acordyd not to thair prechyng, 
Of I cast my frer clothing, 
And wyghtly went my gate. 
Other leve ne toke I none, 
fro ham when I went, 
Bot toke ham to the devel ychone, 
the priour and the covent." 

Both in form and in tone this Song against the Friars is 
perhaps the most popular piece of satirical poetry we have yet 
considered. But we find no such humor in that far more 
elaborate religious poem. The Complaint of the Plowman, 
which followed perhaps in 1394, and is entirely argumentative 
and didactic.^* This earnest religious poem was written pos- 
sibly by the author of Pierce the Plowman's Crede. Though 
its sober allegory is in no wise satirical, its contemporary 
significance is great. 

The writer professes neutrality towards the two religious 
parties. He overhears in a wood a dispute between two birds, 
a griff on^^ and a pelican ; the first, the advocate of the Romish 
church, the second, its opponent. The pelican brings the con- 
ventional charges against the clergy, and contrasts with these 
conditions the humility and poverty of Christ. Saint Peter 
held the key of heaven and hell, but — 

" Peter was never so great a fole 
To leave his key with such a lorell, 
Or take such cursed soch a tole. 
He was advised no thing well. 
I trowe they have the key of hell ; 
Their master is of that place marshall ; 

^* Political Poems, I, 304-46. 

" Not the mythical creature, but the vulture. 



90 

For there they dressen hem to dwel, 
And with false Lucifer there to fall." 

Yet such men are permitted to preach. The griffon inquires 
the pelican's opinion of the secular clergy. " They are haughty, 
sensual, selfish, extortionate," replies the pelican. " What of 
their works ? " asks the griffon ; and he is told they have wan- 
dered far from the pathway trod by their Master. " As for the 
friars, they are exposed in Pierce the Plowman's Crede," says 
the pelican. The griffon now retorts with an angry argument 
in defense of the clergy, and becomes more and more infuri- 
ated at the pelican's replies. This exchange of argument con- 
tinues through almost a thousand lines, and is anything but 
exhilarating reading. Finally the griffon flies away, to return 
soon with an army of birds of prey, and the pelican retreats 
to seek the aid of the phoenix, who appears after a season 
and utterly routs the griffon and his allies. 

Both in use of the vernacular and in sober argumentative 
tone, the tradition of The Complaint of the Plowman is con- 
tinued in the long Lx)llard poetical tract. Jack Upland, which, 
with the reply thereto by an author styling himself Daw 
Topias, stretches out through almost four thousand short allit- 
erative lines. ^^ Henry the Fourth's accession to the throne in 
1399 brought increased danger of persecution to the Lollards; 
and this danger expressed itself in the terrible Statute " De 
Haeretico Comburendo," of 1401, which ordained the burning 
of any convicted of heresy by the ecclesiastical courts. Such 
extreme measures, though not preventing the growth of the 
new sect, rendered the Lollards more secret and circumspect 
in circulating their propaganda. In this very year was indited, 
it may be by one of Wycliffe's itinerant preachers, this violent 
diatribe against the friars. Jack Upland. The author begins: 

" I, Jacke Upland, make my mone to very God, 
and to all true in Christ, 
that antichrist and his disciples, 
by colour of holines, 
walking and deceiving Christs church 
by many false figures — 

" Political Poems, 2, 1 6-1 14. 



91 

do infest this land with abominable vices. The church of 
Rome is antichrist, and the worst of its sects is that of the 
friars V Then follows a long series of charges, accusing the 
friars of every imaginable impiety. Jack Upland has departed 
very far from his master Wycliffe's abstruse scholastic method 
of reasoning, but he applies the foundation of his master's 
doctrine, common-sense. His argument is one to appeal to 
the most illiterate: 

" Go now forth, and fraine your clerks, 
and ground ye you in God's law, 
and when he han assoiled me 
that I have said sadly, 
in Truth I shall soile thee 
of thine orders, 
and save thee to heaven." 

To this lengthy arraignment a friar, calling himself Daw 
Topias, replies with far more vindictiveness and far less rea- 
son, but, most significantly, meets the reformers on their own 
ground: he uses English and simple speech, and appeals to 
the people. Charges are brought against Wycliffe and his 
followers, the Lollard's various accusations are met in some 
fashion; and to all of this Jack Upland again replies in the 
same uncouth strain. 

Though wholly an argumentative poem, quite devoid of 
humor, this long religious tract is interesting for its use of 
the vernacular, its popular tone, and its treatment of contem- 
porary subject-matter. But it is in every respect less interest- 
ing than the two last echoes of the Lollard heresy in verse, 
which were evoked, one by the first defection, the other by the 
execution, in 141 7, of Sir John Oldcastle — the latter an event 
that marked the culmination of Lollard persecution under 
Henry V. 

The first of these two poems, by the poet Occleve,^^ was writ- 
ten probably in 141 5, and reads like an expostulation, addressed 

" It seems best to conclude just here the treatment of the satire on Old- 
castle, though we are thereby carried perhaps thirty years beyond our 
present period. This explains the introduction of Occleve's poem before 
the last mention of Gower. 



92 

to Oldcastle by an apparently friendly person, concerning the 
knight's heretical opinions.^^ Oldcastle is besought to repent, 
renounce these devil's doctrines, and return to the bosom of 
the church. Let him not argue about matters of faith. That 
is not our business. The poet passes on to an enumeration of 
the Lollard doctrines and an attempted refutation of them, 
with incidental invective against the heretics, continuing 
through many stanzas ; ending in a final appeal to this arch 
heretic to turn and repent him of his damnable heresy. 

But Oldcastle was deaf to Occleve's friendly warning. He 
persisted in his bold but fruitless resistance, and finally met 
the martyr's death in 1417. It is perhaps in the following 
year that some ardent opponent of heresy takes this tragedy 
as a text for a bitter diatribe against Lollardry, and so writes 
the sequel to Occleve's more kindly poem of three years be- 
fore.^^ The author makes frequent allusions to Oldcastle, on 
whose name he puns through several stanzas with more labor 
than wit: 

" Hit is unkyndly for a knight. 
That shuld a kynges castel kepe, 
To bable the bibel day and night, 
In restyng tyme when he shuld slepe, 
And carfoly awey to crepe, 
For alle the chief of chivalrie, 
Wei aught hym to waile and wepe. 
That suyche lust hath in lollardie." — 

and so on, through nineteen stanzas, in the characteristically 
bitter tone of religious controversy in all ages. 

HI 

Richard's reign was productive of still another species of 
pseudo-satirical verse : that general lament which has be- 
come conventional and which may safely be supposed to em- 
body the largest amount of *' satirical commonplace." We 
have now one of these jeremiads over the melancholy times 

^^H occleve's Minor Poems, ed. Furnivall, E. E. T. S., Ex. Sen, 61, p. 8. 
^^ Ancient Songs and Ballads, ed. Ritson, Vol. I, p. 121 ; Political Poems, 

2, 2A3. 



93 

written in the same peculiar English-Latin verse used in the 
ballad on the Peasants' Revolt :^** 

" Syngyn y wolde, but, alas ! 

descendiint prospera grata; 
Englond sum tyme was 

regnorum gemma vocata; 
Of manhood the flowre 

ihi quondam floruit omnis; 
Now gon ys that honowr, 

traduntur talia somnis/'^'^ 

Somewhat more vital than this trite lament, in so far as 
they were inspired by specific events, are two short poems, one 
in English, on the earthquake of 1382 f^ the other in Latin, 
on the pestilence of 1391.-^ Both are equally didactic, look- 
ing upon these calamities as the vengeance of God. The ris- 
ing of the " Commons," pestilence, earthquake, the degrada- 
tion of the Church are not themes that readily lend themselves 
to a humorous treatment; hence it is not surprising to find 
both the Latin and the English poem heavy and severe. 

But allowing for inevitable exaggeration and customary 
lament, there was ample excuse for the clerics' wail over the 
condition of the Church, which was as bad as it had ever been, 
and the corruption of society, whose follies were encouraged 
by a luxurious court. The king had now freed himself from 
all restraint, and was making enemies of both commons and 
nobility alike. Toward the close of the reign, when these con- 
ditions had grown worse, we are presented with another 
diatribe against popular vices. This is a Latin poem of three 
hundred elegiac lines — a form well chosen, for an elegy it is — 
by the learned and pessimistic poet of the Vox Clamantis, 
" the moral Gower." The poem has for name and for sub- 
ject-matter " the manifold pestilence of vices, by which our 
land was especially visited during the reign of Richard II " ; 
and declares it the poet's duty to speak out in times of national 

^ See supra, p. 83. 

^Political Poems, 1, 270. 

'^ Ibid., I, 250; ArchcBologia, Vol. 18, p. 26. 

^ Political Poems J 1, 279. 



94 

danger. Gower divides his poem into several sections and 
devotes each of them to the reprehension of a particular vice. 
Such a method is ominous of deadly dullness at the outset. 
The brilliant illustrative method of the classical satirists,^* 
and the less interesting but still far from ineffective method 
of personification employed by Langland,^^ are both disdained. 
Gower prefers the orderly, dry, generalized attack on utter 
abstractions. 

It is difficult to imagine anything more dreary, more remote 
from actual life, or less calculated to affect in the slightest 
degree the society which it arraigns. The same criticism 
applies without modification to a second Latin poem, in hex- 
ameter verse, written by Gower at about the same period — 
The Search for Light. Here the moralist uses a different 
method, and instead of inveighing against abstractions, at- 
tacks, in equally characteristic medieval fashion, the various 
social classes, from the Court of Rome to the public plunderer. 
The poet seeks in vain for light at Rome or in the Church at 
large, which is ruled by simony. Monks and secular clergy 
alike are dwelling in utter darkness. Kings and nobles, who 
trust only the arm of flesh, cannot furnish light ; or merchants, 
whom usury has corrupted; or lawyers, who are ruled by 
bribery. 

So also in the prologue to his Confessio Amantis Gower 
does not fail to moralize over and lament the deplorable con- 
dition of the country, the loss of the old virtues, and the uni- 
versal prevalence of vices that have caused 

" This newe sect of Lollardie, 
And also many an heresie." 

And the poet proceeds in the body of his voluminous treatise 
to " satirize " the deadly sins by the somewhat novel fashion 
of telling a story to illustrate each one of the seven. 

Apart from its prologue, however, the subject-matter of the 
Confessio Amantis has no direct relation to its times. It 
remained for the author of The Vision of Piers the Plozvman 

^* See supra, p. 15 f . ; and cf. p. 162 f., infra. 
^ See supra, p. 73. 



95 

to review the social and political conditions of Richard's reign 
and sum them all up in that terrible indictment against royal 
maladministration which Professor Skeat calls Richard the 
Redeless.^^ In the same alliterative measure of his earlier 
poem, in somewhat the same allegorical style, Langland,^^ the 
genuine censor of society, voices the protest of the people 
against the corruptions of the king's court and reign, wel- 
comes the popular favorite, Bolingbroke, and directly rebukes 
the redeless Richard for his misdeeds : 

While King Richard is warring in Ireland, strange tidings 
have reached the poet in Bristol. They say that Henry of 
Bolingbroke has entered England by the east. The poet is 
troubled, for he has hitherto been loyal to the redeless king, 
and has hoped that he would amend his youthful faults. He 
now writes this treatise to teach men the lesson of Richard's 
reign, the sad results of wilfulness. The poet passes into an 
exhaustive, sober, and straightforward account of the un- 
toward measures of Richard's whole administration. The loy- 
alty of his subjects has been estranged. The king has de- 
spoiled the nation in order to enrich a few favorites. Richard 
came to the crown under most auspicious conditions, but by 
his own misconduct he has deliberately destroyed himself. 
His counsellors were foolish and selfish young men, and 
through favoritism he lost the heart of his people. The Eagle, 
Henry of Bolingbroke, spreads his wings to shelter the nation. 
The Eagle will destroy the King's evil favorites, such as 
Bushey, Scrope, and Greene, who are thus alluded to: 

" Thus baterid this bred on busshes abou3te, 
And gaderid gomes on grene ther as they walkyed, 
That all the schroff and schroup sondrid ffrom other." 

We have next a parable of the Hart and the Adder, bringing 
in the Horse (Arundel), the Bear (Warwick), and the Swan 
(Gloucester). The inference seems to be that in the ruin of 

^ Piers the Plowman and Richard the Redeless, ed. Skeat, 2 vols., 1886; 
under the name of Alliterative Poem on the Deposition of King Richard II, 
ed. Wright, Cam. Soc. Pub., Vol. 3; Political Poems, i, 368. 

^ I here follow Professor Skeat's attribution of the authorship to 
" William Langland." The question is unsettled. 



96 

these three noblemen Richard has destroyed his best friends. 
Another parable tells us how, when the partridge leaves her 
eggs, another sits on them ; but the young birds, if ill-nour- 
ished, remember the voice of their mother. So the nestlings 
know the voice of the Eagle, Bolingbroke, though he has been 
long absent from them, and they tell him of the woes of 
Richard's two and twenty years. Then the other fowls, heavy 
for hurt of the Horse (Arundel), look to the eagle for leader- 
ship. Now the poet leaves this allegorical strain, to dwell 
severely on the luxury of the court, foolish fashions in dress, 
and Richard's extravagance with money gained from oppres- 
sion of the poor. The parliament has been degraded into the 
instrument of the king's will, he cries, and the voice of the 
people has been silenced. 

Richard the Redeless, the protest of one speaking for the 
people, forms a link between such criticism as Gower's, which 
is the meditation of a thoughtful scholar, and that thoroughly 
popular satire on these same circumstances and events which 
sprang directly from the people themselves. As an illustra- 
tion of the last-named type, the remarkable ballad on King 
Richard's ministers is as truly popular a production as could 
be desired, and would seem to indicate that a large body of 
such verse was once in existence. As we have seen from 
Richard the Redeless, the king, by his headstrong violence, 
extravagance, and even cruelty, had been rapidly alienating 
the sympathy of Nobility and of Commons, and finally of the 
people at large. The Earl of Warwick (the Bear), his for- 
mer Councillor, had been exiled; the Earl of Arundel (the 
Horse), condemned and executed in a single day; the Duke 
of Gloucester (the Swan), Richard's uncle, imprisoned in 
Calais, where he suddenly died, — made away with, it was 
openly asserted, through the connivance of the king. More- 
over, Richard surrounded himself with a set of unscrupulous 
favorites, who managed the court to suit themselves and were 
very justly the objects of deep and widespread popular hatred. 
In 1399, just before Richard's reign came to an end, when 
Henry of Bolingbroke had already landed in England and was 



97 

soon to execute summary vengeance on the royal favorites, 
there sprang from some anonymous source this very popular 
ballad, to do good work, doubtless, for the Lancastrian 
cause :^^ 

'' There is a biisch that is forgrowe ; 
Crop hit welle, and hold hit lowe, 

or elles hit wolle be wilde. 
The long gras that is so grene, 

Hit must be mowe, and raked clene; 
forgrowen hit hath the fellde." 

The fates of Gloucester, Arundel, and Warwick, the Swan, 
the Horse, and the Bear, respectively, are referred to regret- 
fully. The Eagle, Lancaster, is welcomed: he will destroy 
the hush, the hag, the green rank grass. 

In this we have a union of personal and political satire quite 
new to English literature. Though in a crude way, the people 
are at last learning to express themselves about political 
affairs. That this feeling against the favorites is not, how- 
ever, confined to one class, is manifest in a Latin poem writ- 
ten on the expected arrival of the new ruler.^® Some general 
complaints against the tyranny of the nobles, the arrogance of 
the court, and the oppression of the people, end in a stanza 
that singles out Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire, Bagot, and Vere, 
for especial condemnation. These men are obnoxious not 
only to the body of the people but to the clerical classes also : 

" Fraus latet illorum propter thesaurum, 
Scrope, Bagge, Ver, Diimus, tormentorum parat humus 
Damnarunt forti justorum corpora morti, 
Sanguis qui quorum vindicta clamat eorum." ^^ 

This poem closes the formally satirical poetry of Richard's 
reign — satire more extensive by far both in quantity and in 

^ Political Poems, i, 363 f. 

^V&irf., i,366f. 

*" This Latin is so execrable that it may be well to attempt some sort of 
translation : " Their fraud for the sake of money lies hidden, but the 
grave of the tormentors is being prepared ( ?). They have condemned the 
bodies of the just to a terrible death, and the blood of these cries out 
for vengeance." 



98 

range than that of any other period previous to the EngHsh 
Renaissance. The great Peasant Revolt, pestilence, earth- 
quake, heresy, royal follies, in addition to the persistent im- 
morality of the clergy, furnished such a variety of subject- 
matter for satirical treatment as perhaps no other reign before 
or since has ever known. 

IV 

Leaving far behind the moral platitudes of Gower, the stem 
diatribes of Langland, the lamentations of clerks, and the 
ballads of the people, we pass for a time into the more genial 
atmosphere of Chaucer's astonishing pictures of life.^^ The 
satire of the Canterbury Tales is chiefly incidental, and the 
subject-matter utilized is mainly conventional, but the method 
is something astoundingly new and effective. There is no 
trace of the moral indignation of Langland, nothing of the 
didactic tendency of Gower; no voice of the people speaks 
here, no clerk laments in platitudes the decadence of the age. 
The satire of Chaucer is not that of a reformer; hence no 
polemic note is sounded. He has no cause to gain, no lesson 
to teach, no prophesy to cry aloud in the streets ; hence the 
utter absence of the qualities that color and universally charac- 
terize the satirical productions of his contemporaries. Chau- 
cer's satire is, with the chief exception of Sir Thopas, mainly 
social ;^^ and so far from excluding and concealing the per- 
sonality of its author, as has heretofore been the case in Eng- 
lish satirical poetry, it depends as much on the satirist's indi- 
viduality as does the satire of Horace and of Pope.^^ The 
gulf separating Chaucer from Langland and the popular satire 
of his period is that between the reformer, who is but inci- 
dentally a man of letters, and the man of letters who is but 
incidentally, and even then unconsciously, a reformer. The 
gulf separating Chaucer from such a moralizer as Gower is 
that between the true satirist and the merely didactic poet. 
Those social, political, and religious phenomena, that moved 

" The Complete Works of Chaucer, ed. Skeat, 6 vols., Oxford, 1894. 
^^ See supra, p. ^2 f. 
^Ibid., p. 15 f. 



99 

some of his contemporaries to scorn or to tears, affected 
Chaucer in a very different way. As a Hterary man, he looks 
upon the world from a point of view far removed from that 
of these ardent souls who felt inspired to reform the universe. 
He selects his material with care, and uses it for purely liter- 
ary purposes. He perceives the evils that move others to 
protest, but, feel these inconsistencies keenly as he may, in 
the main he is moved not to tears and indignation, but to jest 
and laughter; for, if not a moral reformer, he possesses an 
inestimable gift almost unknown to his contemporaries — a 
bountiful sense of humor. His object, then, is to mirror the 
life of his time, to show men and women as they are, not to 
make them better. Society has its faults, but the world is a 
fairly good world for all reasonable people ; it is comfortable ; 
it is certainly amusing. 

In the incidental satire of the General Prologue, the inter- 
ludes, and here and there through the Tales, Chaucer largely 
utilizes subject-matter rendered quite conventional by long 
use. The life of the clergy, the impositions of pardoners, the 
avarice and licentiousness of friars, the rascality of summon- 
ers — in all this there is nothing new. But the method is new 
— a method and a lightness of touch that certainly were not 
an English inheritance, but that might possibly be learned 
abroad in France and Italy ; a humor and wit quite unsurpass- 
able, which could not be learned anywhere and were just as 
certainly no more an English inheritance than the method, but 
were innate in Chaucer himself. This satirist brings no gen- 
eral abstract charges against the religious orders,^* but uses 
the descriptive and dramatic method of Horace, whereby the 
type, and not merely the type, but the individual monk, friar, 
pardoner, summoner. Wife of Bath, and others of the wonder- 
ful motley crew, actually live before the reader. With the 
highest art of the satirist, Chaucer either makes his characters 
reveal themselves, or, where he merely describes them, de- 
scribes them with humor and wit inimitable. 

In his satire, Chaucer employs two different methods : one, 

** Such as had been the stock in trade of preceding satire. 



100 

the direct,^^ the descriptive, illustrated chiefly by the General 
Prologue, occasionally by the minor prologues ; the other, the 
indirect or dramatic,^^ illustrated by the Tales. In the minor 
prologues and interludes, while both methods are combined, 
the indirect predominates. Hence, if we here distinguish 
between the satire of the General Prologue and that of the 
minor prologues and the Tales, it is not because the two differ 
materially in subject-matter, but ^because the satirical method 
of the former is merely descriptive, while that of the latter is 
mainly dramatic. 

Almost three hundred and fifty of the eight hundred and 
fifty-eight lines of the General Prologue are more or less 
satirical. The pictures of the ecclesiastical types — the Monk, 
the Friar, the Pardoner, and the Summoner; and of the lay 
types, — the Reve, the Manciple, the Doctor, the Miller, and 
the Wife of Bath, are portrayed by the descriptive method ; 
yet the satire is so insidious, so permeated with laughter, that 
the result has the effect of a dramatic rather than of a personal 
expression. Perhaps no man of the time was more alive to 
ecclesiastical abuses, more sensible of the degradation of the 
clergy, than was Chaucer. But his method of criticism was 
a world removed from that of a Langland or of a Gower. 
Centuries before, Nigellus Wireker, as may be remembered, 
had laid it down as his theory of satire that " more diseases 
may be cured by unguents than by caustic." ^^ And Chaucer 
being perhaps a satirist of like spirit to that of the humorous 
precentor of Canterbury, implicitly voices the same theory. 

Chaucer's monk, an admirable picture, we may take as the 
contemporary monastic type. He follows the hounds, for 

'' What sholde he studie, and make him-selven wood, 
Upon a book in cloistre alwey to poure ? " 

He enjoyed the good things in life, as was evidenced by the 
fact that 

" He was a lord ful fat and in good point " — 
" He was nat pale as a for-pyned goost." 

^ See supra, p. 14 f. 
="/&/(/., p. 18 f. 
" Ibid., p. 43. 



101 

The friar, too, as here portrayed, justifies the bitter re- 
proaches heaped upon him by other satirists of the period ; 
the character is just the same. But how different the method 
of attack ! When the severe arraignments of Chaucer's con- 
temporaries shall have been forgotten, Chaucer's own most 
exquisite irony, his apparent sympathy with the friar's point 
of view, will still hold the type up to an undying contempt. 
It had originally been the duty of the various orders of friars 
to minister to the needy and nurse the sick ; but, with growing 
wealth and prestige, the old ideal had given place to an ideal 
of worldly ease and position: 

** For un-to swich a worthy man as he 
Acorded nat, as by his facultee, 
To have with seke lazars aqueyntaunce. 
It is nat honest, it may not avaunce 
For to delen with no swich poraille." 

The Pardoner is he of the olden time, but described with a 
richness of humor that makes him a new personage. Here 
the satire is more obvious : 

" He hadde a croys of latoun, ful of stones. 
And in a glas he hadde pigges bones." — 

*' And thus, with feyned flaterye and lapes, 
He made the person and the peple his apes." 

This is one of the four great pictures of the Pardoner in 
English satire. Over a century later. Cock Lorell^^ is to por- 
tray the type with unctuous humor, Heywood is to present the 
pardoner in dramatic form in his two interludes The Four 
P's and The Pardoner and the Friar, ^^ and Lyndsay is to equal 
this portrait in his wonderful dramatic picture of The Satire 
of the Three Estates. ^^ 

Perhaps quite equal to Chaucer's Pardoner is his Summoner, 
who is represented by the same method and with the same half 

'^ See infra, p. 178 f. 

^ Ibid., p. 213. 

*° Ibid., p. 207; cf. also the Pardoner in Bale's Kyng lohan, p. 216, infra. 



102 

sympathetic, half contemptuous humor. He is sensual, ignor- 
ant, repulsively ugly ; but, says Chaucer, 

*' He was a gentil harlot and a kinde." 

That is sufficient ; the Summoner has his good points : though 
Chaucer laughs, he does not utterly despise. It is no part of 
his satirical method to make his types — or rather characters — 
absolutely loathsome. The Summoner grows learned in his 
cups : 

" And whan that he wel dronken hadde the wyn. 
Than wolde he speke no word but Latyn. 
A fewe termes hadde he, two or three, 
That he had lerned out of som decree " — 

In Chaucer's pictures of his lay characters, we find some- 
thing new in material as well as in method. Langland had 
inveighed here and there against millers and reves, but nowhere 
in previous or contemporary English satire do we discover 
anything comparable to these elaborate pieces of characteriza- 
tion in the Prologue. The reve, or steward, is a sly knave, a 
thrifty thief, who, having gained his master's confidence, fleeces 
him ad libitum: 

" His lord wel coude he plesen subtilly. 
To yeve and lene him of his owne good " — 

The Manciple is a knave of the same stripe. By his thrifty 
cunning he has fleeced " an heep of learned men." Even while 
laying bare the rascality of his rogues, Chaucer has to give a 
sly chuckle over their shrewdness and their deception of their 
over-trustful superiors. The Miller, too, is a calculating 
knave with a keen eye for business : 

" Wel coude he stelen corn, and tollen thryes ; 
And yet he hadde a thombe of gold, pardee." 

The doctor is a new character in English satire. While pay- 
ing a certain tribute to his learning and gravity, the poet has to 
laugh at his avarice : 



103 

" He kepte that he wan in pestilence. 
For gold in phisik is a cordial, 
Therefore he lovede gold in special," 

and remarks that " His studie was but little on the bibel " ; 
which perhaps means that the doctor's whole thought was of 
his own material comfort and worldly gain. In a later age 
LaFontaine satirized the physician of his time under the guise 
of the wolf — deceitful and servile, a charlatan and a knave. 
Chaucer's physician is a personage of much greater dignity, 
and is far from being contemptible. 

But the "Wife of Bath"! What picture in all medieval 
satire can stand beside this incomparable portraiture of a 
thrifty, industrious, calculating, vulgar, sensual woman of the 
lower middle class of Chaucer's England? This characteriza- 
tion is no mere conventional satire on woman,*^ but only on a 
certain type of woman. After detailing the industry and skill 
and churchly devotion of his Wife of Bath, the satirist iron- 
ically adds : 

" She was a worthy womman al hir lyve, 
Housbondes at chirch-dore she hadde fyve, 
Withouten other companye in youthe ; 
But thereof nedeth nat to speke as nouthe." 

So much for the satirical characterization in the Prologue. 
Here and there in the portraits of the Prioress and others are 
scattered satirical lines, but it does not appear that Chaucer was 
holding these characters up to ridicule. Apart from the Gen- 
eral Prologue, we must search chiefly in the interludes, the 
Tales, and finally in The House of Fame for the poet's further 
contribution of satire. 

The Pardoner appears again as a satirical type in the pro- 
logue and the conclusion of his own Tale. The prologue con- 
sists of sixty-seven, and the epilogue of about sixty, pentameter 
couplets. Together they form a Satire against cupidity — the 
pardoner's confession of his own frauds, his avarice, his hypo- 
crisy. While the satire is in the dramatic method, the method 

" Such as was to follow in such copiousness a century later ; see " The 
Satire on Woman," infra, p. 175 f. 



104 

is here hardly natural : the Pardoner, one cannot help feeling, 
would scarcely so confess himself to a motley company some 
of whose members he must have looked upon as fair game for 
his tricks. The satirist here speaks really in propria persona: 

" * Lordlings,' quod he, ' in chirches whan I preche, 
I peyne me to han an hauteyn speche, 
And ring it out as round as gooth a belle, 
For I can al by rote that I telle. 
My theme is alwey oon, and ever was — 
'' Radix malorum est ciipiditas." ' " 

'''And after that than telle I forth my tales, 
Bulles of popes and of cardinales, 
Of patriarkes, and bishoppes I shewe; 
And in Latyn I speke a wordes fewe, 
To saffron with my predicacioun, 
And for to stire men to devocioun. 
Than shewe I forth my longe cristal stones, 
Y-crammed ful of cloutes and of bones ; 
Reliks been they, as wenen they echoon.' " 

The elaborate prologue to the Wife of Bath's Tale, eight 
hundred and twenty-eight lines, is a Satire on a certain femi- 
nine type whose original suggestion lay in the old duenna who 
watches over Bel Acueil in the Roman de la Rose^^ It is 
spoken by the wife herself, the same fleshly creature of the 
General Prologue, amorous, loud and crude, domineering, yet 
capable, domestic withal, and apparently quite above marital in- 
fidelity and treachery. By the highest satirical art, she is made, 
while detailing her conjugal experiences and giving her views 
— rather startling in their freedom — on love and matrimony, to 
exemplify in her own person, and unconsciously to satirize, 
feminine lechery, selfishness, and tyranny. No other such por- 
trait exists in English satire ; and other mere " satires against 
women " compared with this immortal picture become colorless 
and feeble. 

And yet, after studying the wife's character as given in the 

*^ See Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, Vol. 2, p. 526 ; Mead, The Prologue 
of the Wife of Bath's Tale, Pub. Mod. Lang. Ass. Am., VoU 16, new sen, 
Vol. 9. 



105 

General Prologue, the prologue to her own tale, and, by impli- 
cation, at least, in the Tale itself, one begins to wonder if, after 
all, Chaucer's picture is purely satirical. A suggestion of 
pathos, an undercurrent of sympathy on the part of the poet, 
in this marvelous piece of characterization, render the Wife a 
more complete personality than any merely satirical picture 
could ever be. It may be, too, that the Wife's prologue is, as 
has been suggested, a Satire against celibacy ; for the poet 
puts into her mouth arguments irrefutable though often frankly 
animal. There is good sense in her talk. Throughout the 
whole picture, in short, Chaucer shows his sympathy with the 
Wife's point of view : he seems to see every side of her char- 
acter, the ignoble as well as the admirable, the silly as well as 
the sensible."*^ 

This satire, if satire it be, on a particular type of woman 
takes a more general range in the envoy to the Clerk's Tale. 
The Clerk has been discoursing on the patience of Griselda, 
and in his playful yet really satirical envoy, advises the wives 
of his time to make no attempt to emulate the admirable yet 
fatiguing patience of his heroine. 

Chaucer, probably unconsciously, continues the Goliardic 
tradition when he attacks celibacy. An eminent Chaucerian 
critic sees in the prologue to the Wife of Bath's Tale simply 
a satire on celibacy.^* However this may be, satire on celi- 
bacy frank and undisguised is certainly to be found in the in- 
terlude before the Monk's Tale. In " The Meerye wordes of 
the Hoost to the Monk," 11. 36-76, the host, with a mingling of 
humor, vulgarity, and common sense, expresses his opinion of 
the celibate state, and asserts that the monk is too fine a speci- 
men of manhood to be celibate. The best-formed men, those 
very ones who should be fathers, the Church claims as her own. 

*' Not only thou, but every mighty man, 
Thogh he were shorn ful hye upon his pan, 
Sholde have a wyf — ." 

" See the admirable analysis of the Wife's character given in Mr. R. 
K. Root's The Poetry of Chaucer, p. 231 f. 
** See Lounsbury, 2, 522. 



106 

While treating the interludes and the minor prologues, it may 
be well to enter a caveat against the supposedly satirical char- 
acter of the interlude following the Monk's Tale and of the 
Tale itself, a lengthy and often tedious, but occasionally beauti- 
ful and tender, narrative de Casibus Virorum Illustrium. The 
genre, of course, derives from Boccaccio. In the tale itself, 
wearisome as it often becomes, the serious and often elevated 
tone would tell heavily against Professor Lounsbury's assump- 
tion that the nature of the tale is parodic.*^ Furthermore, any 
genre has to reach its climax and enter its decline before the 
parody appears. Now the de Casibus genre was still very 
young, — Boccaccio's De Casibus was written between 1363 and 
1373 — and Chaucer's Tale is its first exemplar in England, while 
its long-continued and widespread popularity was not reached 
until the fifteenth century. "^^ For these two reasons, stylistic 
and chronological, the Tale must be taken seriously, as it was 
by Chaucer's successors ; and we are compelled, in order to sus- 
tain the parodic theory, to fall back upon the Interlude. 

The Interlude, indeed, on the face of it — at least the speech 
of the Host — certainly seems satirical. The Monk is abruptly 
" stinted of his tale " by the protests of the Knight and the 
Host. The Knight wants no sad stories, but only those of 
"joie and great solas." The host approves the protest of the 
Knight. This " tragedy " cannot be amended by crying : 

" Sir Monk, na-more of this, so god yow blesse ! 
Your tale anoyeth al this companye; 
Swich talking is nat worth a boterflye — ." 

Had it not been for the clinking of the monk's bugle-bells, the 
host would long since have slumbered through the " Tragedy " ! 
It looks difficult to dispose of this interlude. If supported 
by the Tale itself, we should instantly agree on its satirical 
intent. Yet it is possible that the poet adopted this informal 
close to what threatened to be a tedious narrative ; the Knight 

" See Lounsbury, 3, 332-4. 

** For valuable suggestions concerning the intent of the Monk's Tale, I 
am indebted to Professor K. C. M. Sills, of Bowdoin College, who agrees 
with the view here given. 



107 

and the Host not representing two orders of society,*^ but 
merely the two individuals best fitted to protest against so digni- 
fied a personage as the monk. Chaucer himself was not 
opposed to " tragedy," as certain of his own works testify. 
It may be, as has been suggested, that Chaucer wrote these 
" tragedies " constituting the Monk's Tale long before he de- 
signed The Canterbury Tales, and now utilizes this old material 
in his new scheme, — voicing, in the comments of the Knight 
and of the Host, his own mature opinion of the literary badness 
of his early work.*^ According to this, the Monk's Tale itself 
is in no sense a burlesque, but entirely serious, and represents 
the serious side of the poet's nature. Chaucer's dramatic in- 
stinct asserts itself in the prologue. The poet here appears in 
two characters : his serious side is represented by the Knight, 
while his humorous side seeks outlet in the comments of the 
Host, who finds the Monk's tale both ridiculous and dull.** 

When we look for a manifestation of the satirical spirit in the 
Tales themselves, we find that, while Chaucer may have been 
independent of satirical traditions in England, he was deeply 
indebted to the Continental fabliau. He did not create his 
plots, and, moreover, gained from his foreign sources much of 
his indirect satirical method. The satire of the General Pro- 
logue, the interludes, and minor prologues, is entirely Chaucer's 
own; but the subject-matter as well as much of the method 
and spirit of his Tales he owes to others, despite the local 
coloring and the Chaucerian touch. 

It is customary to speak of the fabliau as a satirical genre, 
with the easy incorrectness with which the words " satire " 
and " satirical " are commonly applied. The fabliau, or 
" conte a rire," a narrative poem picturing, in the main, con- 
temporary life, frequently with humor and power, is a French 
form that perhaps takes its remarkable rise with the fabliau 
Richer t about the middle of the twelfth century. For about 
a century and a half (i 156-1300) it expanded and flourished, 

" But cf. Lounsbury, 3, 332-4. 
** Root, p. 206. 

"For this suggestion I am indebted to Miss M. P. Conant, author of 
The Oriental Tale in England, 



108 

its subject-matter often being common property.^^ Its pic- 
tures of bourgeois life, graphic, humorous, often coarse, even 
extremely licentious, set in the foreground three typical fig- 
ures — the husband, the wife, and the clerk. These are the 
chief favorites, but the picture gallery includes every contem- 
porary type.^^ While the fabliau often entertains a profound 
contempt for women, and sometimes, though but incidentally, 
attacks the ecclesiastical orders — chiefly the monks and the 
friars — it is yet, as a genre, not truly satirical. Its object is 
not to reform, nor even, primarily, to ridicule, but largely to 
amuse — perhaps, though incidentally, to instruct.^- Neither the 
writer nor the reader feels himself above the characters and 
manners portrayed. A clerk is chosen as the hero of an epi- 
sode of marital infidelity less because the typical clerk is worse 
than the typical soldier or merchant than because the contrast 
between the clerk's preaching and his practice is the most 
glaring, therefore the most humorous. The whole society 
concerned in the writing, the reading, and the subject-matter 
of the fabliau is morally homogeneous. Vice, if shrewd 
enough, often triumphs ; the villain may lose, but through his 
stupidity, not through his moral obliquity. Such would seem 
to be the typical fabliau — not a satire, but a humorous por- 
trayal of manners. How easily and how effectively it could 
become really satirical, Chaucer himself shows us in more than 
one of his Canterbury Tales. 

Of the three English fabliaux in England before Chaucer, 
that of Dame Sirith or Siris,^^ in the time of Henry HI, tells 
a story that goes far back to Hindoo sources, with the real 
fabliau spirit and indecency. At least one critic sees in it 
satire on the clergy and on women, from the fact that the Eng- 
lish writer has substituted a clerk instead of a young layman 
as the lover.^* But probably we have in Dame Siriz merely 

'^ See G. Paris, La Litterature frangaise au Moyen Age, p. ii8 f. 

" The material, however, is not always contemporary ; it is sometimes 
drawn from antiquity ; nor is it always humorous, but sometimes moral and 
religious. See Lenient, Ch. V. 

"* See Bedier, Les Fabliaux, passim. 

"^ Maetzner, I, 103 f. 

•^ Haessner, pp. 67-8. 



109 

the ordinary spirit of the fabliau, lacking in real satirical 
characteristics. 

A second so-called fabliau, The Fox and the Wolf,^^ is 
merely a humorous beast-fable, without a superficial trace of 
that " symbolic satire on the clergy " which has been claimed 
for it; while the third, The Land of Cockaygne, is undoubtedly 
satirical, whether it be taken as a parody of the Vision genre 
or merely as a terrible gibe at the sensuality of the clergy. 
The last named, however, either derived from, or thoroughly 
analogous to, a French original, has been elsewhere treated.^^ 

Either fabliaux, or in the fabliau spirit, are Chaucer's Tales 
of the Miller, the Reeve, the Shipman, and the Merchant. 
None of these is truly satirical, and the last named, the Mer- 
chant's Tale, on the famous " January and May " theme, per- 
haps derived from Boccaccio, may be taken as representative 
of the unsatirical fabliau. This is a story of marital infidel- 
ity, in which the young lover, with the consent and assistance 
of the young wife, outwits and befools the old and credulous 
husband. The merchant, in his prologue, asserts that his own 
wife is a shrew fit to overmatch the devil, and his Tale, of 
course, illustrates the sly infidelity of that feminine type. Per- 
haps it might be said that the tale ridicules the absurd credulity 
of the typical old husband. But the motive — simply to amuse 
— is too plainly evident. Narrator, actors, and audience, move 
on the same level. The audience may place its sympathies 
anywhere it pleases — with the old husband or with the un- 
faithful wife. 

The Nonne Preestes Tale is a delightfully humorous beast- 
fable founded on an incident taken from the Roman de 
Renart.^'^ That the tale is allegorical — that the beasts are to 
stand for human beings — Chaucer gravely assures us in the 
" moral." Chanticleer falls through vanity ; Dan Russel the 
Fox, through pride and imprudence. The moral is as grave 
as that of a fable by ^sop. From this point of view, the 
Tale is simply didactic ; certainly it could, as a whole, form 

^ Early Popular Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, Vol. i, p. 58 f. See supra, p. 27. 

^ See supra, p. 58. 

" See Miss K, O. Petersen, On the Sources of the Nonne Preestes Tale. 



no 

but a very general and rather ineffective satire on human 
folly. Furthermore, the moral — which mars the tale — reads 
like an afterthought — a concession by the poet to the taste for 
didacticism characteristic of his period. But the humor and 
the elaborate realism that run through The Nonne Preestes 
Tale, while they do not transform it into a Satire, yet render 
it something quite unique in its charm. The eternal mascu- 
line and the eternal feminine are embodied in the relations 
between Chanticleer and Pertelote. Her well-meant medical 
advice, his rejection of it — how characteristic of each sex! 
Yet this picture is humorous, not satirical. Again, while 
Chanticleer's deliberate mistranslation of the Latin proverb 
may be intended as a satirical reference to marital deception, 
the passage is too brief to color the whole poem. It is true 
that the poet himself speaks some eleven ironical lines against 
woman — lines undoubtedly satirical and stinging as a lash. 
But these, too, are incidental — a digression. Furthermore, it 
is remarkable how many lines in the Tale, so far from being 
satirical, are not even humorous. The lengthy dream-tales, 
while of course incongruous in the mouth of a cock, are in 
themselves quite serious. 

Surely, it is only as a Satire on human folly that The Nonne 
Preestes Tale as a whole can be termed satirical. Granting 
that its humor lifts the Tale from sheer didacticism into satire, 
how little of the story is really given to the incident of the 
Cock and the Fox! The general setting, the conversations 
between Chanticleer and Pertelote, the mock-heroics after the 
capture of the Cock, predominate not only in bulk but in in- 
terest over all other elements. But, after all, the chief argu- 
ment against the formally satirical nature of The Nonne 
Preestes Tale lies in nothing of the foregoing, but simply in 
this: one feels, when he reads the Tale, that Chaucer is 
laughing, that a sympathetic humor permeates the piece, that 
both didacticism and satire are here subordinated to a most 
delicate and delightful fun! 

From such Tales as these, humorous, witty, not satirical, 
we turn to those three — the Tales of the Friar, of the Sum- 



Ill 

moner, and of the Canon's Yeoman — in which the satirist is 
clearly at work. With their sources we are not here con- 
cerned, but we may find in them, as Chaucer made them over 
for us, excellent examples of that satirical method which we 
have termed dramatic or indirect, as distinct from the descrip- 
tive and direct method of the General Prologue. 

The Freres Tale, in three hundred and sixty-six lines in 
pentameter couplets, is a narrative Satire on summoners. The 
story tells of a lecherous, avaricious summoner, and how he 
falls by his own tricks into the hands of the devil, who carries 
him off to hell, where, intimates the Friar, all summoners 
ought to be. While humor is abundant, the satire, though 
altogether implied, is scathing. The friar, at the beginning 
of the story, paints a picture of his summoner so unflattering 
and rude that one cannot wonder at the strenuous protests 
made by Chaucer's Summoner, who is listening to the story: 

" And right as ludas hadde purses smale. 
And was a theef , right swich a theef was he ; 
His maister had but half his duetee. 
He was, if I shal yeven him his laude, 
A theef, and eek a Somnour, and a baude." 

However, the Summoner, in his own tale, more than repays 
his obligations to the Friar. This story, five hundred and 
eighty-six lines in length, is a thoroughly humorous, and 
rather indecorous, exposure of the avarice, deceit, sensuality, 
and gluttony of the typical friar. It is a rare satiric art that 
sets these two abominable types of the period to exposing each 
other's rascality. 

According to the Summoner, his friar, under pretense of 
begging for his friary, lines his own pockets and sack: 

" In every hous he gan to poure and prye. 
And beggeth mele, and chese, or elles corn.'* 

On his tablets he writes the names of those who give, that, as 
he assures the givers, he may pray for their salvation — 

" And whan that he was out at dore anon. 
He planed awey the names everichon." 



112 

From Thomas, a dying man who has given Hberally in the 
past, the friar begs further alms. But Thomas has learned 
his lesson : though he has given freely, he has gotten no good : 

" ' As help me Crist, as I, in fewe yeres, 
Han spended, up-on dyvers maner freres, 
Ful many a pound ; yet fare I never the bet. 
Certeyn, my gold have I almost biset. 
Farwel, my gold ! for it is al ago ! ' " 

The friar, meanwhile, has, through the good-will of 
Thomas' wife, enjoyed a good dinner at the rich man's ex- 
pense. Finally, Thomas, indignant at the pertinacity and 
hypocrisy of the Friar, plays him a rough trick, and sends 
him away wrathful and disappointed. The story ends with 
a contemptuous burlesque in which the friar is altogether dis- 
comfited. Owing to the indecorous nature of the theme, quo- 
tation from the story is largely forbidden. Yet the burlesque 
moves along rapidly and lightly, replete with humor and vigor. 
The satire is of course dramatic and indirect, and is at least 
as effective as that of The Freres Tale. 

Yet in all this, however new and fascinating in method, we 
find nothing distinctly new in subject-matter. But when we 
consider the Tale told by the Canon's Yeoman, we enter a 
new field. For this tale is the first English Satire against 
alchemy. It is to be followed in time by divers attacks, finally 
culminating in Ben Jonson's immortal Alchemist over two 
centuries later. 

Up to Chaucer's time English satire had not been startlingly 
original in its subject-matter. It preferred rather to follow the 
old lines of moral diatribe, to attack political follies, or to ridi- 
cule fashions. In other words, its material was largely external 
and superficial. One might ask why no attacks were made 
against the pseudo-sciences, astrology, alchemy? — against the 
medical science of the age ? — against its philosophy ? — its social 
economy? The answer is not far to seek. False sciences as 
they were, astrology and alchemy were grounded in the belief 
and upheld by the good-will of all classes of the people. The 
same was true of the medical science, the scholastic philosophy, 



113 

the medieval social economy. Only the Renaissance was to 
break the bonds, to let in the light. Even as it was, the be- 
lief in alchemy persisted for centuries after Chaucer, and astrol- 
ogy still finds its devotees at the present day. The scholastic 
philosophy alone was satirized — and that briefly, though 
effectively, in a Goliardic poem in the reign of Edward I.^^ So 
The Canon's Yeoman's Tale is a pioneer and as such deserves 
full credit. 

The Canon's Yeoman's Tale, seven hundred and sixty-one 
lines, is divided into two parts : the first, a direct attack on 
alchemy ; the second, a humorous illustrative story. In Part 
I. the yeoman relates his experiences as the servant of a canon 
who practiced the art of the alchemist, giving his life, time, 
means, to the search for an impossibility. The yeoman is a 
grave personage ; he comments on the art feelingly as one 
acquainted with it to his own cost, but he is not mirthful : 

" This cursed craft who-so wol exercyse. 
He shall no good han that him may suffyse; 
For al the good he spendeth ther-aboute. 
He lese shal, ther-of have I no doute 
Who-so that listeth outen his folye, 
Lat him come forth, and lerne multiplye ; 
And every man that oght hath in his cofre, 
Lat him appere, and wexe a philosofre." 

The story, however, is humorous enough. A canon- 
alchemist, shrewd and tricky, finds a credulous priest whom he 
resolves to dupe. From this priest he borrows one mark a day 
for three days, repays promptly, and so gains the priest's confi- 
dence. Then, by an amusing and clever trick, he shows the 
priest, to the latter's satisfaction, how to make silver. For 
the recipe the Canon receives forty pounds — and is never seen 
again. In this there is great humor of situation, and the 
satire, not merely by its originality but by its vigor, must rank 
among the best in the Canterbury Tales. 

Chaucer's one formal piece of literary satire is Sir Thopas. 
There can be little doubt that this is a deliberate attempt to 
burlesque a certain exaggerated type of the contemporary 

^ See supra, p. 62. 



114 

metrical romance. The tale, told by the poet himself, is in some 
thirty-three stanzas, which vary in form, the prevailing type hav- 
ing six lines, rhyming a a b c c b; the b lines of three accents; 
the others, four. The whole is merely a caricature of the tedi- 
ous and senseless details of the less admirable examples of the 
metrical romance, dull, vapid, never-ending. The tale is 
abruptly broken off by the significant statement, " Here the 
Host stinteth Chaucer of his Tale of Sir Thopas." 

" * No more of this, for goddes dignitee,' 
Quod oure hoste, * for thou makest me 
So wery of thy verray lewednesse 
That, also wisely god my soule blesse, 
Myn eres aken of thy drasty speche — .' " 

But Chaucer's satire does not end with the Tales. The 
House of Fame, that strange but powerful mixture of satire and 
pure allegory, while not a formal Satire, is yet, in effect, largely 
satirical. 

This important poem, two thousand one hundred and fifty- 
eight lines in length, is written in tetrameter couplets and is 
allegorical in form. While it owes much to Dante both in gen- 
eral resemblances and in particular details, it is in no sense a 
parody of The Divine Comedy. Chaucer does not ridicule 
Dante's work, nor, though The House of Fame is largely sat- 
irical, does he use a dignified form as a vehicle for inferior 
or ludicrous subject-matter.^^ 

In the first of the three books into which the poem is divided 
the poet dreams. He finds himself in a glass temple dedicated 
to Venus. This stands for the realm of love-poetry in which 
Chaucer has been idly wandering. He steps out of this temple 
into the world of reality — and finds it a desert : he has been liv- 
ing a life too remote from the actual.^® From the desert, the 
poet is carried aloft by an eagle to the Temple of Fame, be- 
twixt heaven, earth, and sea. Book second is filled with a de- 
scription of the journey in the eagle's claws. The third book 

"^ See supra, p. 20; Ten Brink, Chaucer: Studien, etc., p. 88 f . ; Rambeau, 
Chaucer's " House of Fame," Eng. Stud., Vol. 3, p. 209. 
** See Root, passim. 



115 

describes the House, built on a rock of ice, slippery, imperma- 
nent, engraved with multitudinous names, many fast fading, 
some, on the northern side — the side of toil and effort — standing 
eternal. Within, upon a throne of carbuncle, sits the goddess 
Fame, many-eyed, many-eared, many-tongued, changing in 
form incessantly, — for earthly fame ever waxes and wanes, — 
while the Muses sing eternally her praise. Countless are the 
strange personages the poet finds collected together in this 
mighty fane : 

" Ther saugh I pleyen logelours, 
Magiciens and tregetours. 
And phitonesses, charmeresses, 
Old wicches, sorceresses, 
That use exorsisaciouns 
And eek thise f umigaciouns ; 
And clerkes eek, which conne wel 
Al this magyke naturel, 
That craftely don hir ententes, 
To make, in certyn ascendentes. 
Images, lo, through which magyk 
To make a man ben hool or syk." 

Now are made manifest the inexplicable caprices of Fame. 
Before her kneel nine successive companies. The first ask fame 
for their good works, but are denied report either good or ill. 
Still others obtain the renown they merit for their goodness. 
Some who have done good wish only oblivion — and receive it. 
Others desire the same, but obtain fame unwillingly. One 
company who have done nothing ask and gain fame unde- 
served ; others who ask for unmerited fame, gain but slander. 
Wicked men pray for good report and obtain it. Still others 
who have done evil are denounced by ^olus through his trump 
of ill-report. Finally, as a crowning caprice of Fame, a com- 
pany of those who really merit well are rewarded only with 
eternal obloquy. 

Now the poet is carried by the eagle to the House of Rumor, 
a cage built of twigs, sixty miles long. Here, under Rumor's 
sway, men are constantly seeking news, circulating reports, dis- 
torting, exaggerating : 



116 



And every wight that I saugh there 

Rouned ech in otheres ere 

A news tyding prevely, 

Or elles tolde al openly 

Right thus, and seyde : ' Nost not thou 

That is betid, lo, late or now ? ' 

' No,' quod [the other] , ' tel me what ; ' — 

And than he tolde him this and that 

And swore there-to that hit was sooth — " 



" But al the wonder-most was this : — 
When oon had herd a thing, y-wis, 
He com forth to another wight, 
And gan him tellen, anoon-right, 
The same that to him was told, 
Or hit furlong-way was old, 
But gan somewhat for to eche 
To this tyding in this speche 
More than hit ever was." 

In one corner of the vast exchange, where love-tidings are 
received, the poet hears a great noise. With this, the unfinished 
poem abruptly ends. 

What is satirized in The House of Fame? The caprices of 
fortune and reputation, the dissemination of slander, the exag- 
gerations of rumor. Thus far, the satire is general. But we 
seem to hear a personal note also. The great poet is perhaps 
here voicing his own sovereign contempt for slander, rumor, the 
vicissitudes of fortune, and most of all, for the insensate 
caprices of Fame. All this satire, incidental, informal, is narra- 
tive and descriptive. It is entirely social, but far more severe 
than Chaucer's wonted tone. The dramatic method is main- 
tained, however, though the allegorical form necessarily pre- 
cludes the lambent humor and the sparkling wit of the Tales. 

The minor poems of Chaucer, while not entirely free from 
occasional satirical touches, offer little that is new or signifi- 
cant. The balade Against Women Unconstant, is not genuinely 
satirical, nor is the Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan. But the Len- 
voy a Bukton, against marriage, in its irony, half playful, half 



117 

bitter, is true satire. This envoy is in four eight-line stanzas, 
rhyming ababbcbc; and the best of it is the following: 

*' I wol nat seyn, how that hit is the cheyne 
Of Sathanas, on which he gnaweth ever, 
But I dar seyn, were he out of his peyne, 
As by his wille, he wolde be bounde never. 
But thilke doted fool that eft hath lever 
Y-cheyned be than out of prisoun crepe, 
God lete him never fro his wo dissever 
Ne no man him bewayle, though he wepe." 

Since his satire is almost wholly social, Chaucer disregards as 
unfitted to his purpose the political events and the public dis- 
asters of the stormy time in which he lived. All this subject- 
matter is left for others to treat, and finds scarcely an echo in 
his verse. He seems to be as little affected by these passing 
conditions as he is by the other satirical productions of his time. 
He stands apart, amused, critical, uninfluenced by his contem- 
poraries. It seems impossible to establish any connection be- 
tween his methods of satire and those of his English predeces- 
sors, or indeed with the methods of those who follow him. No 
work comparable with this had been produced in England or on 
the Continent ; and nothing equal to it as verse-satire was to 
appear again in England for almost three centuries. Indeed, 
even in the evolution of English satirical poetry, Chaucer stands 
apart, and can hardly be said to form a real link. Yet, in his 
careful observation of inconsistences in conduct, his method of 
selection, his power to draw the portraits of social types, his 
pervading humor and wit, Chaucer anticipates the finished 
satire of Dryden and of Pope. 



CHAPTER IV 
From Lydgate to the Renaissance 

Decline of satire after the time of Chaucer. — Lydgate. — London Lick- 
penny. — Ragman Roll. — Political Satire. — Absence of satire under Henry IV 
and Henry V. — Satire against Burgundy. — Allegorical satire : cognizances 
of the nobles. — Personal satire. — Suffolk. — Political satire. — Lancaster and 
York. — Religious satire. — The friars. — Social satire. — How Myschaunce 
regneth in Ingeland. — Contribution made by this age to the Satire, 

Chaucer's immediate successors, while they did not perpetu- 
ate his methods of satire, at least endeavored to imitate his 
style, and traces of his influence are to be found in many 
anonymous productions within the fifty years following his 
death. The rhymed couplet that enabled Chaucer to antici- 
pate the rounded apothegm and epigrammatic point of a much 
later satirical school, was unfortunately abandoned, however; 
and, in satiric poetry, only the stanzaic forms were utilized. 
With this reversion, came again the looseness of structure, 
the repetition, the lack of progress and climax, that had pre- 
viously characterized English satirical poetry. Chaucer, stu- 
dent of society and close observer as he was, could not teach 
others his art. Hence satire continued its prosy way uninter- 
rupted, on the old lines of general and ineffective diatribe and 
moral disquisition, with their modicum of humor and their 
remoteness from actual life. The exceeding humanity of 
Chaucer's poetry had merely preluded the Renaissance, not 
commenced it. His dawn soon faded away, as the ecclesias- 
tical influence again prevailed. Again the individual was lost 
in the generalization. Again at every step was intruded the 
conventional moral, and again platitudes were substituted for 
acute criticism founded on observation of life. Wit and 
humor as the supremely effective weapons of satirical attack^ 
could not be utilized under these conditions. Such is, in gen- 
eral, the character of the satirical poetry produced within the 

^ See supra, p. 8. 

118 



119 

thirty years after Chaucer ceased to portray actual life ; when 
Lydgate and Occleve were the great names in contemporary 
literature. Their productions are extremely literary, self- 
conscious, and reflective ; far removed from that stream of 
popular satire which continually flows unheeded, and which, 
had Occleve and Lydgate drunk of it, might have given vital- 
ity to their dull and barren diatribes. 

The inconsistency of men's actions is one of Lydgate's 
themes, in a poem of which every stanza ends with " It may 
wele ryme, but it accordith nought." ^ There is here certainly 
no lack of perception of general inconsistencies, but the percep- 
tion arouses no sense of humor in the poet ; quite the contrary. 
The poem is not without clearness and point, fair metrical 
form, and unimpeachable morality ; but at best how vague and 
futile it seems after the vital satire of Chaucer or even the 
merely popular political ballad ! ** Flesh and spirit," says the 
worthy monk of Bury, '' are incompatible as fire and water. 
No man can serve two masters " : 

" A mighti kyng, a poore regioun, 
An hasty hede, a comunalte nat wise, 
Mikel almes-dede, and false extorcioun, 
Knyghtly manhode, and shameful cowardise ; 
An hevenly hevene, a peneful paradise, 
A chast doctryne withe a false thought, 
First don on heede, and sithen witte to wise. 
It may wele ryme, but it accordith nought." 

— and so on through eleven stanzas of admirable platitudes. 
And in its abstract subject-matter, didactic tone, lack of 
humor, and general ineffectiveness, the same poet's A Tale of 
Thescore Folys and Thre is a worthy companion piece.^ This 
is a contribution to that mass of medieval " fool-satire " which 
is to culminate in Sebastian Brandt's Narrenschiff^ at the end 
of the century. The old classical idea of the essential foolish- 
ness of any deviation from the moral norm, is utilized by 
Lydgate in a fashion that might have evoked a smile from 

'Lydgate's Minor Poems, ed. Halliwell, Percy Soc. Pub., No. 2, p. 55 f. 

* Ibid., p. 164 f, 

* See infra, p. 155 f. 



120 

Juvenal himself. Just as the medieval cyclopaedia embodied 
all human knowledge, so here the precise moralizer distinctly 
defines every possible species of folly. There are precisely 
sixty-three — no more, no less — in the moral universe. From 
these types there can be no variation. This is the ne plus 
ultra, with limits set and classes catalogued. One stanza alone 
may illustrate the beautiful rigidity and finality of this medi- 
eval system of character analysis : 

" The chief of foolis, as men in bokis redithe, 
And able in his folly to hold residence, 
Is he that nowther lovithe God ne dredithe, 
Nor to his chirche hathe none advertence, 
Ne to his seyntes dothe no reverence, 
To fader and moder dothe no benyvolence, 
And also hathe disdayn to folke in poverte, 
Enrolle up his patent, for he shal never the.'"' 

In Lydgate's two satirical poems on the times, So as the 
Crabbe gothe forward e,^ and As Straight as a Ram's Horn,^ 
we might expect perchance a little gain in human interest, a 
closer observation of men. We are disappointed. The sub- 
ject-matter is as general, the intent as didactic, as ever. But 
the ironical tone marks a real gain. A cruder form of irony 
could scarcely be possible, for, lest we think the good monk 
serious, he closes each stanza with the assurance that this ideal 
state of affairs is no more actual than the fact that a crab 
travels forwards or that a ram's horn follows a right line. 
But irony it is, rather bitter than humorous, yet a cause for 
thanksgiving amid a dreary waste : 

" This world is ful of stabilnesse, 
There is therein no variance, 
But trowthe, feythe, and gentilnesse, 
Secretnesse and assurance, 
Plente, joye, and plesaunce. 
By example who can have rewarde, 
Verraily be resemblance. 
So as the crabbe gothe forwarde." 

""Ibid., p. 58 f. 
* Ibid., p. 171 f. 



121 

A Satyrical Ballad, "^ said to have been written by Lydgate, 
as given by Wright, is, though perhaps no ballad, certainly 
satirical. On the face of it, it looks personal, but its chief 
figure, " Maymond," — a lazy, idle, dissipated young knave, 
whose chief accomplishment is to " pluk out the lyneng of a 
bolle," — is probably a type rather than an individual. 

London Lickpenny, formerly attributed to Lydgate, but 
now acknowledged to be of unknown authorship,® gives an 
interesting and fairly vivid picture of London life, somewhat 
after the method of Langland. The poet makes a journey to 
London, but is disappointed in obtaining anything, even jus- 
tice, without money. " But, for lack of money, I cold not 
spede," he cries cynically and not without humor, as he de- 
scribes his visit to lawyers for justice; to cooks and hucksters 
for food ; to merchants, for clothing ; to tavern-keepers for 
shelter ; to barge-men for a boat — all in vain ; not charity, but 
universal avarice sways the hearts and purses of the metropo- 
lis. Not only does the seeker for justice fail in his mission, 
but he has his hood stolen soon after beginning his search. 
Finally, he is returning home in despair, when he espies the 
said hood already, with commendable mercantile despatch, dis- 
played for sale: 

Into Cornhyll anon I yode 

where is moche stolne gere amonge 

I saw wher henge myne owne hode 

that I had lost in Westminster amonge )?e throng 

then I beheld it with lokes full longe 

I kenned it as well as I dyd my crede 

to by myne hode agayne, me thought it wrong 

but for lack of money I might not spede 

In its realistic and fairly humorous description of actual life, 
London Lickpenny more nearly attains the truly satirical than 

'' Reliquice AntiqiKB, ed. Wright, vol. i, p. 13. 

' There seems to be no evidence either external or internal that London 
Lickpenny is the work of Lydgate. There are two existing MSS. of the 
poem, Harley 542 and Harley 367. The latter, until recently considered 
the authentic text, is merely a sixteenth century recension. See the work 
of Miss Eleanor P. Hammond, Anglia, vol. 20, whose text is used here. 



122 

any other production of its time. For Occleve, apart from 
the poem addressed to Sir John Oldcastle, never remotely ap- 
proaches a satirical tone. A blood-thirsty appeal to Henry V, 
beseeching that orthodox monarch to root out heresy, forbid 
religious disputation, and slay the foes of Christ;* and a 
Ballade/^ occasioned by Richard the Second's interment in 
Westminster, containing a similar appeal, are his sole contri- 
butions to destructive criticism. And Occleve was as innocent 
of humor as he was of poetical talent. 

Produced at this same period, the anonymous tract known 
as Ragman Roll^^ is one of the earliest of those conventional 
attacks on women which later became so common.^^ We have 
had the type exemplified two centuries earlier in the Goliardic 
poem, De Conjuge non Ducenda, and shall meet it again and 
again for two centuries to come. The verse of Ragman Roll 
is in Chaucerian style, but the poem as a whole is an odd mix- 
ture of eulogy and vulgar abuse. Women of all types are 
represented, and each stanza contains a separate portrait, some 
very noble tributes to womanly character alternating with 
others very gross and abusive. From among these, says the 
writer, the reader may select as best pleases her. Bits of irony 
abound, such as 

" O constant womane, stabill as the mone/' 

A poem contemporary with Ragman Roll, Syr Peny,^* also 
recalls Goliardic times, and is an imitation of De Nummo, 
above mentioned.^* It is one of the conventional ballads on 
money that are to become more common a century later. 

Apart from these unimportant productions, and certain 
others of like tenor, we find through the greater part of the 

* Hoccleve's Minor Poems, ed. Furnivall, E. E. T. S., Ex. ser., No. 6i, 
p. 39. 

'Uhid.. p. 47. 

^^ Early Popular Poetry, vol. i, p. 68 f ; Anecdota Literaria, ed. Wright, 
pp. 83-8. 

" See infra, p. 1 75 f . 

^^ Early Popular Poetry, I, 159; for A Song in Praise of Sir Penny, see 
Ancient Songs and Ballads (1829), I, 134. 

" See supra, p. 42. 



123 

fifteenth century little but political satire. Far removed from 
literary tradition, such satire has the advantage of live subject- 
matter and popular appeal. ^^ 

The absence of any satirical attack against Henry IV would 
seem to indicate that he was welcomed by all classes of the 
people. The unsuccessful conspiracy against his life and 
throne made by Rutland, Kent, Salisbury, and other disaf- 
fected nobles, was too personal an affair to find any echo in 
verse. But it is rather remarkable that the great revolt of 
the Welsh under Owen Glendower, in 1402 ; and the rebellion 
of the Percies, which was quelled at Shrewsbury, furnish us 
with no extant political poems either popular or academic. It is 
not until 1405 that these revolts against the house of Lancaster 
are recorded in any partisan verse. In favor of the young Earl 
of March, whom Henry was keeping in confinement, Northum- 
berland had formed a second conspiracy. Among his asso- 
ciates were young Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, son 
of Henry's old enemy ; and Richard Scrope, Archbishop of 
York, brother of that Earl of Wiltshire whom Henry, on his 
arrival in England, had so summarily beheaded. The plot 
was frustrated, and both Duke and Archbishop were executed 
at York. The Archbishop was a favorite with the populace, 
who straightway, to the king's disgust, began to venerate him 
as a saint and make pilgrimages to his tomb. The prelate's 
fate is lamented in a long Latin elegy which becomes some- 
thing of an attack on the reigning house of Lancaster.^® This, 
though premature, is the beginning of that satire produced by 
the Wars of the Roses which is to follow half a century later. 

The writer complains of the haste and injustice of the Arch- 
bishop's trial, which disregarded his rank as a peer and his 
exemption from lay jurisdiction. His sentence is described 
and the manner of his conveyance to the place of execution. 
We are told how the Archbishop encouraged his young com- 

" The well-known Turnament of Totenham (see Early Pop. Poetry, 3, 
82 f . ; Ancient Songs and Ballads, 1, 85) is a humorous burlesque, but 
scarcely satirical. It is full of fun, but hardly seems a true parody of the 
romance of chivalry. 

^* Political Poems, 2, 114. 



124 

panion Mowbray to meet death serenely. The prelate's fate, 
and that of others who perished through the conspiracy, is 
lamented. The whole kingdom has suffered in the death of 
these leaders, says the eulogist. 

Apart from the Lollard poem of Jack Upland,^'' nothing else 
of a satirical character has come down to us from the fourteen 
years of Henry IV's reign, though they were troubled with 
internal conspiracy, with wars against the Scotch, and with 
Welsh rebellion. Indeed, it is not such periods as this that 
give us a great variety or quantity of satire ; but rather the 
reigns of weak or unpopular kings, such as Edward II, Richard 
II, and Henry VI, when internal disorders were rife, and dis- 
asters abroad inflamed the discord at home. 

As with the reign of his father, so it was with that of Henry 
V, who succeeded to the throne of 141 3. Except the two 
poems connected with Oldcastle, nothing approaching the sat- 
irical has survived to us from the brilliant reign of the Victor 
of Agincourt. Ballads on Agincourt and the siege of Rouen 
we have, paeans of triumph, but no echo of internal strife at a 
time when it would seem that all classes of society were united 
by one spirit of national enthusiasm. During a period of suc- 
cessful foreign wars, such as that of the early years of Edward 
III and of Henry V, what satire we find is directed against the 
foe, and notes of domestic discord are drowned in the great 
shout of national victory. 

This tide of foreign conquest continued to rise for years 
after the death of Henry V in 1422. Yet the position of the 
English abroad was rendered precarious by the defection of the 
Duke of Burgundy, their old and powerful continental ally. 
Dissatisfied with the attitude of the English, Burgundy broke 
the alliance, and to the grief and rage of his former allies made, 
in 1435, a separate treaty with France. In the following year 
he attacked that darling of the English heart, Calais. The 
siege was unsuccessful, but the Duke's bad faith seems to have 
aroused all classes of the English people, for the event is re- 
corded in a number of political poems that are at once a per- 

" See supra, p. 90 f. 



125 

sonal attack on the Duke and on all Burgundians, and a ming- 
ling of invective and genuine ridicule that marks a striking 
advance beyond any previous political satire. The first dart is 
hurled in a short, imperfect English poem in which Philip of 
Burgundy is upbraided for having forgotten the succor 
afforded him by Henry V — to whom he vowed faithful allegi- 
ance. On the holy sacrament was this vow made, and Philip 
is now false both to God and man!^® Burgundy evidently 
made an overture also to the Scottish King, James I, for some 
clerk, in a short poem in Latin hexameters, declares that both 
rulers are treacherous, and that alliance between Scotland and 
Burgundy is natural, for — 

" Est et semper erit similis, similem sibi quaerit ; 
Ambo perjuri, sunt ambo simul perituri."^^ 

The siege of Calais itself is celebrated in two excellent bal- 
lads, largely burlesque in tone, which are quite the best political 
satire yet produced in England. The first minstrel begins in 
romantic style, and tells how the Duke of Burgundy assembled 
his chivalry from Flanders, Picardy, Burgundy, Brabant, 
Hainault, and Holland. The gay appearance of the troops is 
described, and their extensive preparations for the siege.^^ The 
second and much superior ballad^^ also contains a burlesque 
account of the action, but is couched in the form of a direct 
address to the Flemings, who are taken as the representatives 
of the entire Burgundian realm. It is rather remarkable for 
its burlesque tone and genuine satire, as well as for its un- 
usually melodious verse, and connects itself with the songs of 
Lawrence Minot and the popular ballads of the reign of 
Edward HI : 

" Remembres now ye Flemyng, upon your owne shame 
When ye laid seege to Caleis ye wer right full to blame 
For more of reputacion ben Englisshmen |?en ye, 
And comen of more gentill bloode, of olde antiquitee 
For Flemyng com of flemed men, ye shall well understand, 
For flamed men & banished men enhabit first youre land ! '* 

"^^ Political Poems, 2, 148. 
^''Political Poems, 2, 150. 
^ Ihid., 2, 151. 
^ Archceologia, 33, 130. 



126 

Shortly after this series of events, and fifty years after the 
ballad on King Richard's ministers in 1399,^^ we meet again the 
interesting and thoroughly popular form of satire exemplified 
in that ballad — viz., the satire in which great noblemen are 
allegorically represented by their cognizances. This peculiar 
style is confined mainly to the political poetry of the Wars of 
the Roses. During that miserable epoch, no dweller outside the 
towns was safe unless enrolled under the banner of some feudal 
lord and wearing his livery. Knights, squires, yeomen flocked 
to the standards of Warwick, of Salisbury, of Somerset ; and, 
although the whole system was actually tottering to its fall, un- 
dermined by new conditions, the army of retainers possessed 
by a great noble of this period was greater than ever before in 
English history. Hundreds or thousands of retainers of many 
a great noble ravaged the country, marched through city and 
village up to parliament at Westminster, or met on the field of 
battle; and it was inevitable that such standards as Warwick's 
Bear and Ragged Staff, Gloucester's Swan, and Exeter's Cres- 
set, should be recognized by all classes of the people. Thus, 
until Edward IV was firmly seated on the throne, and the 
feudal system fallen with Warwick at Barnet, this peculiar and 
characteristic method was employed by all the political satire 
of that period of civil conflict. 

In 1447, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and his great rival, 
Cardinal Beaufort, both passed away ; leaving William de la 
Pole, first Earl, then Marquis, and finally Duke, of Suffolk, 
who had arranged King Henry's marriage with Margaret of 
Anjou, the only minister whose counsel was much regarded by 
the king. Three very unpopular courtiers, Daniell, the 
" Lily " ; Norris, the " Conduit " ; and TreviHan, the *' Cor- 
nish Chough," stood high in the king's favor, and were hated 
by the people as the promoters of unjust taxation, the pro- 
ceeds of which they were accused of appropriating largely to 
their own use. The Duke of York, a great fighter and actual 
heir to the throne, was being forced out of his neutral atttiude, 
and had been practically banished to Ireland. 

^ See supra, p, 97. 



127 

All these conditions, the disasters abroad, the dissensions at 
home, the death of public favorites, and the supremacy of 
hated royal advisors — best known to-day, if known at all, 
through Shakespeare's King Henry VI — are mirrored in a bal- 
lad produced about the year 1449.^^ Bedford, the Rote, Glou- 
cester, the Swan, Exeter, the Cresset, Norfolk, the White 
Lion, Warwick, the Bear, Arundel, the White Hart, Devon, 
the Boar, York, the Falcon, are all mentioned: 

" The Rote is ded, the Swanne is goone. 
The firy Cressett hath lost his lyght; 
Therefore Inglond may make gret mone. 
Were not the helpe of Godde almyght." 

The unpopularity of Daniel, and also of Lord Say, the Treas- 
urer, is further attested by another poem in English written 
about the same time. The house of Lancaster had long been 
proverbial for its poverty. The expensive foreign wars had 
drained the royal treasury, and, since the days of Henry IV, the 
expenditure of the government had greatly exceeded its 
revenue. The deficit resulted in heavy and unjust taxation, 
for which the ministers of finance, and not the king, were 
blamed. The popular indignation that resulted a few months 
later in "Jack Cade's Rebellion" (1450), finds expression in 
this poem. Suffolk's unpopularity is growing. He has been 
hated ever since he effected the King's marriage, which in- 
volved a cession of English territory in France, and, as the 
people claimed, a loss of national honor. Continued disasters 
abroad, culminating in the loss of Normandy, are all laid to his 
charge ; the unfortunate and almost innocent duke is made a 
scapegoat for the entire maladministration of Henry's reign. 

In his warning to King Henry,^* the writer very char- 
acteristically has no blame for the weakness of his King, 
but rebukes those whom he considers responsible for the 
domestic dissensions. " Ye that have extorted grants from the 
king, restore them or else fly for your lives. Ye have so im- 
poverished the king that perforce he begs from door to door. 

^ Excerpta Historica, ed. Bentley, p. 159; Political Poems, 2, 221 f. 
^* Excerpta Historica, p. 360 ; Political Poems, 2, 229. 



128 

Lord Say, and Daniel, begin to make reparation, or you perish ! 
Throughout all England are poverty and truth oppressed, and 
the King knoweth it not." 

Belonging to this same period and in English, though far less 
popular in character, is the piece of invective that some 
enemy, — possibly a jealous ecclesiastic, though he seems to 
voice a popular sentiment, — has directed against William 
Boothe — Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield in 1447, and Arch- 
bishop of York in 1453.^^ Between these two dates the poem 
was written. Bishop Boothe was scarcely a sufficiently promi- 
nent figure in the political life of his time to be coupled with 
Sufifolk or held responsible for the general state of affairs. But 
the writer seems to see in him a type of the worldly, simoniacal 
prelate, in every way unworthy of his exalted position, and an 
ill-adviser of the King. " Boothe, thy wealth bought thee pre- 
ferment, and Chester [Coventry and Lichfield] cries out 
against the indignity. By simony thou hast feathered thy 
nest, and all the world knows it ! " 

" Prese not to practise on the privite 
Of princes powere, but pluk at the ploughe; 
Clayme thou a Carter crafty to be ; 
Medille the no ferthere, for that is ynoughe. 
Thow hast getyne gret goode, thou wost welle how. 
By symoni and usure bilde is thy bothe ; 
Alle the worlde wote welle this sawys be sothe." 

"But may God save the king from Suffolk and all his other 
foes, who lead him to destroy such men as Gloucester, Bedford, 
and Beaufort! As for Boothe, all men know he labors but for 
lucre." 

That Suffolk was in any way responsible for the deaths of 
Bedford, Beaufort, or Gloucester, was, of course, totally false. 
But the accusation, and the frequent mention of the Duke's 
name, show how the clouds are gathering around his head. 
Some one must die for all this general maladministration, and 
Suffolk is to be the victim. 

Our next ballad^^ rejoices over the arrest of the unpopular 

^ Excerpta Historica, p. 357 f . ; Political Poems, 2, 225 f. 
^ Political Poems, 2, 22^ f. ; for the satirical ballad in general, see 
supra, p. 7. 



129 

minister. This was in 1450, when the loss of Normandy and 
other disasters in France led to Suffolk's impeachment in Par- 
liament under various preposterous charges. He was accused, 
among other things, of betraying England to France, and of de- 
siring 'to elevate his son to the throne. Suffolk was popularly 
referred to as the '* Fox," and " Jack Napes," the vulgar name 
for a monkey. The present ballad expresses the joy of the peo- 
ple at his arrest, and reiterates the charges of his having '' tied 
Talbot,-" our dog," and brought " good " Duke Humphrey of 
Gloucester to his death. 

" The fox hath been driven to his hole ; yet some of you are 
his friends, and with him hunt the hares. He hath tied Tal- 
bot, our dog : evil may he fare for it ! " 

Only a short time elapsed before Suffolk's enemies were en- 
abled to celebrate in verse an event still more final and satis- 
factory than his arrest. King Henry was compelled to yield to 
the popular clamor against his minister, and bade him absent 
himself from England for five years. The issue was dis- 
astrous, for it saved neither Suffolk's life nor Henry's reputa- 
tion. After embarking hastily for Flanders, the Duke was 
overtaken in the Channel by a ship called " Nicholas of the 
Tower," of uncertain commission, but of very certain purpose, 
by whose master he was saluted with the ominous greeting 
" Welcome, traitor," and was told that he must die. After a 
day for confession, he was beheaded, and his body flung on the 
Dover Sands. 

In a hideous parody of the Mass, some popular writer cele- 
brates the unmitigated joy that this tragic event brought to 
the great majority of the English people.^^ It is a personal 
attack on a dead man, but also on the man whom the people 
regarded as the representative of treachery and national dis- 
honor. The absence of invective only renders the ironical 
personalities more terrible. The ballad assembles together at 
the death of the hated minister every unpopular ecclesiastic of 
the realm, among them Booth, Bishop of " Chester." 

^ Lord Constable of England. 

^ Political, Religious, and Love Poems, ed. Furnivall, E. E. T. S., vol. 
15, p. 6 f. Ancient Songs and Ballads, i, 117 ; Archceologia, p, 29, vol. 320 ; 
Turner, Hist. Eng. (1830), vol. 3, p. 74; Political Poems, 2, 232 f. 



130 

However unjust, the hatred of a nation is a terrible thing; 
and this personal attack upon Suffolk was the sharpest of its 
kind up to that time known to English literature. Parliament 
had learned its power; the impeachment of royal ministers 
was now its right; and the people, too, were learning to ex- 
press their opinion in " good set terms." And this is true 
despite the fact that Jack Cade's Rebellion in 1450 found 
no echo in verse that has survived to the present day. 
It won its cause, for the sympathy of a nation was with 
it; and hence no clerks attacked it in vituperative Latin 
or English rhymes, as they did the " upstart peasantry " 
in 1 381. It is true, too, that during the Wars of the Roses, 
from the first battle at St. Albans in 1455 until 1471, when 
Edward IV was firmly seated upon the throne, very little 
really satirical poetry was produced in England. But political 
ballads there are in plenty, paeans of victory, eulogies on the 
leaders of both parties, abuse, invective. Many of the bal- 
lads, which show a distinct gain in form over those of any 
preceding period, are allegorical. The great nobles are re- 
ferred to by their cognizances, as in the more satirical poetry 
of the earlier part of the century. March is the Rose, Salis- 
bury, the Eagle, Warwick, the Bear; and these, together with 
other great leaders, figure as the object either of eulogy or of 
vituperation. 

It was probably within the few months of truce before the 
battle of Wakefield, December 30, 1460, that some Yorkist 
partisan uttered his warning to the Rose, the Eagle, and the 
Bear against the wiles of the Lancastrians.^^ " Beware, lords 
of York, of the false dealings of the Lancastrians. They are 
arrant hypocrites, who profess to admire the Rose and have 
stilled their barking at the Bear; yet both would they gladly 
destroy." 

Very different from these popular and enthusiastic ballads 
is that Latin poem on the civil war, written shortly after Tow- 
ton, by John de Wethamstede, monk of St. Albans. ^^ It is 
a chronicle of events of which St. Albans was the center, but 

^' Archceologia, 29, 340. 
^'^ Political Poems, 2, 258. 



131 

the reflections upon the Lancastrians are frequent and bitter. 
The civil war is detailed so far as concerns St. Albans, with 
severe protest against the outrages committed by the northern 
troops of the Lancastrians. The battles of St. Albans and 
Wakefield and the sack of the abbey are described, with re- 
newed and indignant reproach of the northern troops for their 
gross outrages. The poem ends with a defense of Edward's 
rights to the throne and an argument of Henry's disability. 

The popular English ballad and this academic Latin chron- 
icle are at opposite poles, yet both go to show the well-nigh 
universal feeling that placed Edward of York upon the throne. 
In English, and in very tolerable metre, yet more like the 
monkish chronicle than like the ballad, is the strangely Chau- 
cerian political tract in favor of the Yorkist party. ^^ The poet 
must have written between the time of Edward's coronation in 
1461 and Warwick's defection some three years later; for he 
represents the great earl as still loyal to York. The history 
of the house of Lancaster is traced ; the evils of the time 
ascribed to Queen Margaret, who was, indeed, partly responsi- 
ble for them; and Warwick and Edward are extravagantly 
eulogized. 

It is inevitable, during such a period of strife as existed in 
England through the greater part of the fifteenth century, that 
such satire as was produced should be mainly political. The 
Wars of the Roses, with all the evils of their tempestuous 
period, seemingly pushed into the background the perennial 
sources of complaint. Amid the strife of factions and the 
terrible uncertainty of life itself, a strife and an uncertainty in 
which every class of society participated, very little literature 
of any kind was produced, and the satirical part of this prod- 
uct was inevitably colored by the stormy temper of the times.^^ 

Yet a few examples of religious and of social satire appear 
even in this period of political upheaval. Those ecclesiastical 

^^ Political Poems, 2, 267. 

^- A number of popular ballads, celebrating Yorkist victories and Yorkist 
heroes, belong to this period, and in spirit and style show a considerable 
gain over any predecessors. Interesting in themselves, they are yet eulo- 
gistic rather than satirical; Archceologia, 29, 343; 2, 267; 29, 130; Political 
Poems, 2, 271 ; etc. 



132 

conditions that have so long furnished food for satire have not 
been materially mitigated. Lollardry, to be sure, has learned 
discretion, and after 1418 suffers no further poetical attack. 
That the friars, however, are still a source of disquietude, 
appears from a little poem in alternate English and Latin lines 
produced probably in the early part of Henry the Sixth's 
reign.^^ In form and tone so similar, it is perhaps a direct 
imitation of two poems written in the latter part of the previ- 
ous century. " Friars are false, immoral, lascivious," says 
the accuser ; " it is dangerous for a householder to admit them 
into the same house with his wife and daughters." 

It is not until the beginning of the civil strife in 1456 that 
we find the next conventional complaint of the kind, — in this 
instance, a lugubrious wail over the evils of the times, chiefly 
the prevalence of deceit in the State. Each one of the ten 
stanzas ends " For now the bysom leads the blind," or with 
a slight variation of this refrain.^* Probably by this same 
sombre critic, certainly employing similar material and treated 
in a like tone, though more elaborate, is the complaint entitled 
How myschannce regneth in Ingeland. Each of its nineteen 
stanzas ends with the refrain " Of al oure synnys, God, make 
a delyveraunce." ^^ The writer, very pardonably rendered 
pessimistic by the deplorable conditions surrounding him, sums 
up the immoralities of his time in Church, State, and Society — 
vice after vice being taken up and directly inveighed against 
in stanza after stanza, without either the personification or the 
attack on social classes which marked the period before the 
Wars of the Roses. 

The extravagances of Edward the Fourth's court were per- 
haps responsible for a short diatribe against the corruption of 
public manners, in which gallants and priests are the special 
objects of censure :^^ 

" Ye prowd gelonttes hertlesse, 
With your hyghe cappis wittlesse, 

" Political Poems, 2, 249. 

^ Ibid., 2, 235; ReliquicE Antiqua, 2, 238. 

'^ Political Poems, 2, 238. 

^Political Poems, 2, 251. 



133 

And your schort gownys thriftlesse, 

Have brought this londe in gret hevynesse." 

In these several pieces, we have a great deal of conventional 
complaint; satirical commonplace, moral, sombre, wholly des- 
titute of humor, however inspired, perchance, by genuine feel- 
ing. Such trite lament may be sincere : it is certainly ineffec- 
tive. The real contribution that this age — from Chaucer to 
the Renaissance — makes to the Satire, is the marked advance 
in the public capacity for satirical expression, accompanied by 
a certain amount of genuine humor. 



CHAPTER V 
Henryson, Dunbar, Skelton, and Barclay 

The Renaissance. — Robert Henryson. — His Fables. — The Dog, the Scheip, 
and the Wolf. — The Wolf and the Lamb. — Their significance. — Dunbar. — 
His range of subject-matter and tone. — His humor. — His power in the 
grotesque. — His satirical poems. — Dunbar as a satirical poet. — Skelton. — 
The New Learning. — Skelton's life. — His peculiar verse. — His heritage 
from the past. — The Bouge of Court. — Elynour Rummyng. — Speke Parrot. — 
Wolsey. — Colyn Cloute. — Skelton's attitude toward reform. — Why Come 
Ye not to Courtef — Its attack on Wolsey. — Its place as a Satire. — Skelton 
as a satirist. — Barclay. — Brandt. — The Narrenschiff. — The Ship of Fools. — 
Its general character. — Its popularity. — Its form. — Its motley company. — 
Its satiric methods. — Its social satire. — Its lack of poetry. — Its medievalism. 
— Its glimpses of characterization. — Its Renaissance elements. — Barclay vs. 
Skelton. — Influence of The Ship of Fools. — Barclay's Eclogues. — Change 
from chronological to topical treatment in the following chapters. 

With the reign of Henry VH came the Renaissance. It 
was an era of great names. The stream of anonymous and 
desuUory satire seems to disappear between the years of 1480 
and 1520; from, the reigfi of Richard HI, of Henry VH, and 
the early years of Henry VHI, nothing of the popular product 
survives. Instead, we find the same subject-matter, the same 
tone, exemplified in the more formal and elaborate productions 
of Barclay and of Skelton in England ; of Dunbar and of 
Lyndsay in Scotland. Together with these, though a far 
lesser light as a satirical poet, stands Robert Henryson, the 
Scotchman, who deserves mention if only on account of the 
unique character of his contribution to the English Satire. 
Henryson, Dunbar, Skelton, and Barclay, may well be treated 
together in the present chapter, but Lyndsay will find more 
fitting treatment in connection with the Satire of the Refor- 
mation. 

I 

Robert Henryson, the poet of Robene and Makyne and The 
Testament of Cresseid, wrote also, between 1470 and 1480, 

134 



135 

thirteen " fables." ^ These are largely imitated from ^sop, 
but, rather incongruously, are couched in Chaucer's favorite 
rime royal. From several points of view these fables are of 
interest. They are the only representatives of their kind in 
English literature before the time of Elizabeth, at least. 
Again, while all are thoroughly didactic, two of the thirteen 
are, in a certain sense, satirical. These two are The Taill of 
the Dog, the Scheip, and the Wolf, and The Taill of the Wolf 
and the Lamb. 

In the former, the Dog, needy and poor with a poverty that 
is not honest, determines to get a living by falsely accusing 
the innocent sheep. Judge Wolf, who is in the plot, summons 
the sheep to court. The Raven is apparitor ; the Kite and the 
Vulture appear as advocates for the Dog ; and the Fox is clerk. 
The Dog asserts that he has paid money to the Sheep for 
bread which the latter has never delivered. The Bear and the 
Badger, appointed by the Court as arbitrators, of course de- 
cide the case against the Sheep, after lengthy perusal of 
Digests and of Codes. The Sheep, pleading vainly for jus- 
tice, is forced to travel to town and sell the wool off his back 
to buy bread for the rascally Dog. In the Moral appears the 
satire. The Sheep is the poor " Commons " ; the Wolf is the 
cruel and oppressive Sheriff, — and so on. The whole is a 
stern arraignment of the Consistory Courts — a complaint to 
be echoed, a generation later, by Lyndsay, with increased 
power. 

In The Wolf and the Lamb, the familiar apologue of ^sop 
is adorned with a Moral almost as long as the fable. The 
Lamb is the tenant, the merchant, or the laborer; the Wolf is 
the lawyer, the rich man, or the lord. The poor man suffers 
the same lot described so often in the satire south of the Bor- 
der ; and Henryson utters his complaint with the homely earn- 
estness and deep feeling that Lyndsay was to give to the same 
theme in his Satire of the Three Estates: 

^ The Poems of Robert Henryson, ed. Laing, Edinburgh, 1865. A later 
edition is edited by G. Gregory Smith, Scot. Text. Soc, 1906. To this I 
have not had access. 



136 

" His hors, his meir he mon lend to the laird 
To dring, and draw in court or in cariage ; 
His servand, or his self, may not be spaird 
To swink and sweit, withouttin meit or wage. 
Thus how he standis in laubour and bondage, 
That scantlie may he purches by his maill, 
To leve upon dry breid and watter-caill." 

In these two examples we find the didactic fable applied to 
contemporary themes. They are neither the purely moral 
apologues of ^sop nor the fables of Marie de France 
or of LaFontaine.^ This fact, together with their isolated 
position in the history of English literature, render at least 
these two of Henryson's fables significant. Furthermore, 
their direct vigor and moral earnestness point the way to 
Lyndsay. 

II 

William Dunbar's satirical verse, though without appreciable 
influence on later satire south of the Border, yet displays many 
English characteristics. As Dunbar, during an almost com- 
plete dearth of satirical poetry in both England and Scotland, 
continued something of the Chaucerian traditions, and, in the 
vigor and wit of his satirical verse, far surpassed the other 
productions of his time, it may be well to consider briefly his 
contribution to the Satire. 

At last, through the crafty policy of Henry VII, England and 
Scotland were at peace. Under this benign and unusual condi- 
tion of affairs, Scottish literature again flourished, and Dunbar 
— wit, scholar, court-poet, and priest — was the consummate 
flower of his time. Though possessing many popular Scottish 
characteristics, Dunbar was yet an even more typical product of 
the court of James IV. It was a dissolute court ; and Dunbar's 
poetry, for all its undercurrent of earnestness, bears the stamp 
of the poet's environment. He was not primarily a satirist. 
Indeed, his purely satirical poems form but a small part of his 
productions, and, with one or two exceptions, that part is also 
unimportant. The poet of those elaborate Chaucerian alle- 
gories. The Thistle and the Rose and The Golden Tar^^, made 

^ See supra, pp. 2y, 28. 



137 

of his short and formless satirical poems mere jeux d'esprit, 
outlets for an occasional satirical mood. But these short poems 
are still replete with vigor. They are a real literary product, 
far removed from popular satire, representing, in the main, no 
popular idea, but merely the poet's personal predilections. 
They spring from no great moral conviction, and are calculated 
to effect no great moral reform. Dunbar was no protestant 
by nature, but a close observer and a wit who wrote either to 
amuse himself, to espouse the cause of his patrons, or, perhaps, 
to voice the discontent arising from hope of preferment long 
deferred. It naturally resulted that he dissipated whatever 
satirical force he possessed in a number of little efforts, infor- 
mal and occasional. Consequently, these short satirical poems 
are difficult to analyze and classify. They represent a side cur- 
rent, though a highly refreshing one, in the dreary stream of 
fifteenth century satire. Something of their spirit may have 
passed into Lyndsay's poems, but what Lyndsay may have in 
common with Dunbar is probably rather the native Scottish 
character than any personal inheritance. Yet, despite their in- 
significant length, their apparently purposeless, and certainly 
informal, character, Dunbar's short satirical poems possess 
some unique characteristics which upon close reading grow 
more and more apparent. 

In something less than a dozen poems^, varying from forty 
to five hundred and thirty lines in length, the poet ranges 
through political, personal, social, and religious satire,* with an 
ease and felicity amazing to one who has followed the course 
of previous satire in English. How Dunbar was desyrd to be 
ane Freir ridicules the Franciscans ; The Turnament hits at the 
galvanized chivalry of James's Court; Tidings from< the Ses- 
sion^^ touches both politics and society; Ballat of the Fenzeit 
Freir is wholly personal ; The Tua Mariit Wemen and the 
Wedo is wholly social. All these are perhaps equally felicitous 
in expression. 

' The Poems of William Dunbar, ed. Small, S. T. S., vol. 2, vol. 4. Edin- 
burgh and London, 1893. 
* See supra, p. 30 f. 
*^ This is the editor's title, as are all titles given in modern English. 



138 

Apart from this versatility in the choice of subject-matter, 
the quaHty and range of Dunbar's humor are also noticeable. 
Chaucerian as he was in his more elaborate poems, his satirical 
poetry shows little of Chaucer's sane, consistent, observation of 
life and knowledge of human nature. Dunbar is Chaucerian 
now and then in a happy hit, but his humor has nothing of the 
subtlety, his observation nothing of the realism, of Chaucer. 
On the other hand, this humor of Dunbar's, though not acute, 
has an extensive field of activity. It is moralistic and rather 
bitter in Tidings from the Session; entirely bitter in the attack 
on Donald Owre ; burlesque in the Franciscan ballad ; and 
merely grotesque in the Turnament. We pass from the savage 
invective of one or two personal Satires to the good-humored 
raillery of The Tehouris and Sowtaris. At one time we are 
listening to a personal diatribe, of which one would have fan- 
cied Dunbar incapable ; straightway we hear some homely news 
from the " Session " ; again we are spirited away to hell to wit- 
ness a grotesque tournament between tailors and cobblers. The 
grotesque is Dunbar's forte. It is here that his finer qualities 
of sincerity, originality, and force appear. These traits go far 
to redeem the slenderness of the product, its lack of great pur- 
pose and of consistent form ; and even to atone for a less par- 
donable coarseness that is likely to creep in and defile Dunbar's 
best work — a coarseness due, however, rather to the poet's 
period than to his personality. Indeed, Dunbar's remarkable 
force in grotesque caricature renders his best work quite unique 
in English satire. 

The form of these various satirical poems, with one notable 
exception, is stanzaic; stanzas of five, six, seven, eight, ten, 
and even twelve lines. The metres are equally various ; but 
the verse-form invariably fits the subject-matter — ^whether 
the former be the slow rhythm of the Tidings from the Ses- 
sion or the rapid, fierce verse of the invective against Donald 
Owre. 

Tidings from the Session is written in eight seven-line 
stanzas. The " Session " is the Supreme Court recently estab- 
lished. Two countrymen meet. One has just returned from 



131) 

Edinburgh, and gives the news : " People do not trust one 
another there. The criminal gets the best of honest people. 
Many are the hypocrites. Some win their suits through their 
army of retainers — others by bribery. Some perjure them- 
selves ; some bless, and others curse, the saints. There are 
wolves in sheep's clothing, and all manner of criminals." 

" Sum with his fallow rownis him to pleiss 
That wald for invy byt of his neiss ; 
His fa sum by the oxstar leidis ; 
Sum patteris with his mowth on beidis. 
That hes his mynd all on oppressioun ; 
Sum beckis full law and schawls bair heidis, 
Wald luke full heich war not the Sessioun." 

This stanzaic form of course precludes the point, the antith- 
esis, and the epigram of the couplet ; and while it perhaps 
affords lightness of touch and rapidity of movement, it also 
makes against any steady sequence of thought. 

In material for satirical treatment Dimbar was rich : of this 
the Court of James IV afforded an unlimited quantity. The 
short jeu d' esprit in twenty-six lines of rhymed couplets, 
Aganis the Solistaris in Court, attacking hangers-on at Court 
and their way of obtaining favor, seems to be the first example 
in English of what may be termed "Court-satire." Chivalry 
had decayed, and modern courts, replete with characteristic 
court vices, were now established in both Scotland and England. 
Dunbar's little poem is a pioneer, and its species is to be 
prolific through succeeding centuries. 

Less novel and original is the social Satire beginning Dev- 
orit with Dreme, devysing in my Slummer, in which Dunbar, 
reverting to the old English type of general diatribe, attacks in 
turn various social classes. Despite its conventional material, 
the poem has in it more life and sincerity than ordinarily char- 
acterize its species, as it seems to have been inspired by imme- 
diate conditions. This conventional satire again appears in the 
dull diatribe. Against Evil Women. Such poems represent not 
the satirical poet Dunbar, but the priest. 

That Dunbar, however, is capable of much less conventional, 



140 

and much more original and effective, satire against women 
appears in his famous but highly indecorous The Twa Mariit 
Wemen and the Wedo. This scathing burlesque, so bitter in 
its implications, is written in five hundred and thirty lines of 
the old alliterative verse to which, strangely enough, this master 
of stanzaic form now reverts. The form here employed is indi- 
rect and dramatic — that of a conversation between the two mar- 
ried women and the widow, who exchange confidences and 
divulge their conjugal experiences in terms indecorous, unquo- 
table, but, satirically, not ineffective. This poem of course con- 
nects itself with the perennial Satires on women,^ though its 
dramatic method makes it akin to Chaucer's work rather than 
to the typical poem of its class, and its bitter gibes and horrible 
insinuations fortunately render it a thing apart. 

Scarcely less severe than Against Evil Women, but far more 
vital and effective, in the Satire on Edinburgh,^ which describes 
the condition of the city streets, and rebukes the citizens in no 
measured terms for allowing in their capital so horrible a state 
of affairs. 

In complete contrast to this moralistic tone, is the burlesque — 
almost grotesque — flavor of the best of these social Satires, The 
Turnament. This piece includes a two-fold object of ridicule — 
the antiquated and perfunctory chivalry of a Renaissance Court, 
which struck Dunbar as absurd, and the trades of the tailor and 
the cobbler, which seem to have been prominent in Dunbar's 
Edinburgh, and to have been warmly disliked by the poet. The 
form of the burlesque ballad suits the gross satirical humor of 
the theme. 

Social and political satire are combined in We lordis hes 
chosin a chiftane mervellns, addressed to Albany (1520?). 
There was certainly ample material for satire in the surprising 
political conditions that developed in Scotland after Flodden 
Field. The regent Albany, whose presence seemed essential 
to the political welfare of the nation, continually absented 

"See infra, p. 175 f. 

* Cf. Fergusson's The King's Birth-Day in Edinburgh; Atild Reike ; The 
Town and Country Contrasted, etc. For these references I am indebted to 
Mr. S. L. Wolff. 



141 

himself in France and left his country, rent by domestic dis- 
cord, to care for itself. 

In vice most vicius he excellis (1506) — a bitter attack on 
Donald Owre — adds a personal element to the political. This 
unrelieved invective, in eight six-line stanzas, directed against 
the rebel and political pretender, illegitimate son of Angus 
of the Isles, perhaps represents the height of Dunbar's talent 
for invective : 

" In vice most vicius he excellis. 
That with the vice of tressone mellis; 
Thocht he remissioun 
Haif for prodissioun, 
Schame and susspissioun 
Ay with him dwellis." 

Wholly personal, without admixture of either social or polit- 
ical elements, is the famous ballad in sixteen eight-line stanzas 
entitled The Fenseit Freir of Tungland. This is a thoroughly 
justified attack on an impostor named Damian, one of the king's 
favorites, who worked upon his master's credulity. The poem 
gives a burlesque account of Damian's attempt to fly into 
France. Its tone represents the mean between Dunbar's 
soberer attempts and the wild grotesquerie of such ballads as 
The Turnament. 

Wholly personal, too, is The Flyting of Dunbar and Ken- 
nedie, which must be mentioned here if only to say that this 
remarkable piece of mock-invective is in no way satirical.'' 
Walter Kennedy, the poet, was Dunbar's contemporary and 
friend. The " flyting " of the two embodies merely an inter- 
change of ridicule, good-natured, so far as we can judge, 
without any satirical motive whatever. 

The Dance of the Sevin Deidly Synnis is perhaps Dunbar's 
most remarkable poem. Though grotesque, it also is free from 

^ " Flyting " comes from " flit " (contention) ; and the " flyting," a 
metrical scolding match, is analogous to the jeti parti of early Provengal 
poetry (see Morley, Eng. Writers, VII, 140). In Italy, Luigi Pulci and 
Matteo Franco had indulged, without any ill-will, in just such interchange 
of vituperation. In England, we have the " flyting " of Skelton and 
Garnesche. 



142 

satire except in its last stanza, which shows the old hatred of 
the Lowland for the Highland Scotch. The scene is in hell. 
After a dance by the Seven Deadly Sins, described with a 
perfect genius for weird and grotesque effect, the devil calls 
for a Highland pageant to crown the saturnalia. He is, how- 
ever, so deafened by the outlandish noise made by the High- 
landers that he smothers them with smoke in the " deepest 
pot of Hell." 

Again, Dunbar's Dergy, though a parody, is not a Satire. 
The form, that of a parody of the solemn services of the 
church, was not uncommon ; we have seen it in the horrible 
parody of the Mass celebrating the death of the Duke of 
Suffolk.^ In Dunbar's poem, the Trinity, the Virgin, the 
Patriarchs and Apostles, are petitioned with parts of the Lord's 
Prayer, and other sacred forms of the liturgy, to persuade the 
king to leave the poor cheer of the monastery at Stirling for 
the delights of Edinburgh. There is in this no hint of satire ; 
though the form is parodic, the object is merely to amuse.^ 

When we consider, however, one of Dunbar's most success- 
ful efforts — the short religious Satire directed against the 
Franciscans, Hozv Dumhar was desyrd to he ane Freir, — we 
find a tone at once highly humorous and thoroughly satirical. 
Here we reach the extreme of the poet's satirical range, — a 
range culminating in masterly burlesque. The satirist is vis- 
ited during the night by one whom he supposes to be Saint 
Francis, who tries to persuade him to become a monk. Dun- 
bar flies in terror from the habit which is offered, and, when 
asked the reason for his refusal, says that he has known of 
few holy friars ; and, furthermore, the offer comes too late, for 

** Gif evir my fortoun wes to be a freir, 
The dait thairof is past full mony a 3eir; 
For into every lusty toun and place 
Off all Yngland, frome Berwick to Kalice, 
I haif in to thy habeit maid gud cheir." 

He has travelled as a friar from Canterbury, over the ferry at 

' See supra, p. 129. 
* Ibid., p. 20. 



143 

Dover, through Picardy, and knows the order. At this rebuff, 
the supposed saint vanishes away in fiery smoke: he was not 
St. Francis at all, but a fiend in holy shape. The poet awakes 
wondering if the devil has become the patron of the Fran- 
ciscans. 

In summing up the characteristics of these various sporadic 
attempts, we may note first of all their brevity and their wide 
range of material and tone ; and secondly, their directness, 
vigor, and sincerity. Dunbar stands alone in the peculiar 
quality of his humor, and though not a satirist in any formal 
sense, he is still entitled to consideration for his admirable 
qualities. His work embodies less of the purely conventional, 
and shows greater originality, than that of any other satirical 
writer of his time. 

Ill 

From the Scottish poet whose brilliant sporadic attempts in 
a satirical vein scarcely entitle him to serious consideration as 
a Satirist, we turn to his English contemporary, John Skelton, 
who perhaps may be called the first dominating figure in the 
line of English satirical poets. Skelton's poetry gathers into 
itself much of the conventional material of previous English 
satire, but also includes a great deal that is strictly contem- 
porary and individual. In range of tone and form, few satir- 
ists are more restricted than Skelton ; in range of material, 
few are so broad and inclusive. 

Since Lydgate's time, England had known no great voice 
crying in the wilderness. Ineffective as were Lydgate's lugu- 
brious cries, they were still an echo from the past and con- 
tinued a time-honored English tradition. For over half a 
century, through civil war and a deluge of domestic evils, 
England, south of the Border, had no genuine poetry of any 
kind; and, as has been seen, the satirical spirit found expres- 
sion only in popular ballads and occasional wails from the 
monasteries. Still, the voice of the people speaks in these 
attempts and gives them significance. At times these half- 
inarticulate cries merge into one, which comes from the lips 
of the man who speaks with the authority born of strong pur- 



144 

pose and deep conviction. This man we call a satirist — • 
whether, like Dryden, he employs a consummate literary form ; 
or, like John Skelton, he speaks in a voice unequal and harsh. 

Henry VII once seated on the throne of England, peace 
came again. Conditions grew favorable to literature. Col- 
leges and schools were founded ; the New Learning came over 
the Alps and found a home in the universities. Grocyn, Lin- 
acre, and Colet; Erasmus, Thomas More, and a host of other 
scholars, thronged the church, the court, the schools. Gross 
evils still afflicted the nation. The clergy were corrupt; the 
people poor and miserable ; the State was threatened with a 
despotism which the Tudors were rapidly making an accom- 
plished fact. Yet, the Court favored the New Thought, and 
gave the new education a decisive impetus. 

One of the products of these newer and more favorable con- 
ditions was Skelton. Yet, in respect to literary form, Skelton^ 
court-poet and defender of the New Learning though he was, 
was in the Renaissance but not of it. His point of view, 
his poetical forms, show no trace of the new order. He is 
thoroughly English, and medieval at that ; using his classics as 
Gower used them. He reads Juvenal's Satires, yet writes 
with no pretense to classical form,^^ and is no herald of Wyatt 
and the Elizabethan satirists, save perhaps in his vigorous 
Anglicism. Furthermore, the Satire to Skelton — as it was to 
his predecessors — is but an instrument, a means. It is not a 
cultivated literary form, remote from actual life, but is an 
expression of national discontent. And the rough verse- form, 
fitting the still more rugged subject-matter, has much of the 
Anglo-Saxon in its short irregular cadences, and was suited to 
the untuned ear of the contemporary public. 

Skelton's life, roughly contemporary with that of Dunbar, 
stretches through the reigns of Edward IV, Richard III, and 
Henry VII, to the middle of the reign of Henry VIII. He 
saw a feudal chivalry replaced by a modern court, replete with 
those traditional follies that from his time on furnish so fruit- 
ful a source of satire; and these court follies he satirized in 
The Bouge of Court. He saw a totally corrupt clergy, tainted 

^° For the classical Satire, see supra, p. 15 f. 



145 

with the vices that had aroused the ire of all satirical writers 
since the time of the Goliards ; and these vices he attacked 
especially in Colyn Cloute. He saw all power secular and 
religious gathered into the hands of one arrogant minister of 
state, and this minister, Wolsey, he assailed in his Why Come 
Ye not to Court. These three elaborate Satires embody al- 
most all that Skelton has to say about Court, Church, Society, 
and State, and contain the elements of all his minor poems 
save The Tunning of Elynour Rummynge}'^ 

Excepting The Bouge of Court, which is an example of 
fairly good form, all of Skelton's elaborate satirical poems are 
couched in an outlandish verse which he made so peculiarly 
his own that it has gained the epithet Skeltonical. The irreg- 
ularity of meter that distinguishes this Skeltonical verse, ren- 
ders it an admirable vehicle for the torrents of invective in 
which Skelton loves to indulge. The normal measure is iam- 
bic ; the syllables average six ; the number of accents averages 
three ; the rhymes are double, triple, and sometimes quadruple. 
From the standpoint of invective, some of its cadences are 
wonderfully telling. It flows in an irregular current — at 
times comparatively smooth, but only for a few lines ; again, 
moving as roughly as human ingenuity could well effect. It 
babbles, it roars, it storms, and jerks its way along. Its waters 
are muddy, but its current is irresistible. This verse with its 
short irregular alliterative lines, perhaps long existing among 
the people, was now for the first time used as a literary vehicle. 
It served its purpose, and was employed for a few years by 
some of Skelton's worthless and anonymous imitators, who 
aped their master's faults and lacked his virtues ; then happily 
it disappeared forever before the more polished forms of the 
new poetry. 

Skelton's heritage from the past, however, does not consist 
merely in a tremendous breadth of material and a popular 
verse that he perhaps adapted to his own purposes. His rude 
strength and vigor, his intolerance of wrong and oppression, 
his calls for reform in Church and society, his power of invec- 
tive and lack of sympathetic humor, were native to the man, 
it is true, but were also an English inheritance from a long 

^The Poetical Works of John Skelton, ed. Dyce, 2 vols., 1843. 



146 

line of satirical predecessors. He embodies all the ideals of 
previous English satire ; his work is the consummation of all 
that preceded it; he is the last of the medieval satirists, as he 
is the greatest. This is what he gained from the past. What 
his own times gave Skelton we shall see as we consider his 
greatest Satires more in detail. 

Skelton's career of satirist seems to have begun after he 
had reached middle age. It is reasonable to suppose that his 
Court-Satire, The Bouge of Court,^^ at once the most formal 
and poetical of his satirical productions, was written after 
1500, when he was at least forty years old. The poet as Uni- 
versity man had written various minor poems before this 
period, but now his true temper began to find expression. We 
have seen how the old chivalric court had passed away and the 
new social court had come into existence in both Scotland and 
England. Dunbar had written perhaps the first true Court- 
Satire, and now in England Skelton was to inaugurate a spe- 
cies destined to endure for centuries. Himself at the court, 
the poet found material about him in abundance. The sub- 
ject-matter of the Bouge of Court has perfect unity ; its form 
remarkable regularity; and in both subject-matter and form 
it contrasts strangely with Skelton's later Satires. Wolsey's 
career had not yet begun ; the poet's eyes were perhaps not 
yet awake to the flagrant evils he was later to attack so bit- 
terly; at any rate, political, religious and personal satire are 
entirely wanting in this his first satirical poem. 

The Bouge of Courts written in regular and fairly musical 
rime royal stanzas, is in the form of an allegory. ^^ The alle- 

"" Bouge " is the French bouche (the mouth); and "bouge of court" 
is an old term signifying the right to feed at the king's table. " Court 
rations " is the definition given in the New Eng. Diet. As Skelton uses 
it, the term means " court favor." 

" Cf. the Roman de la Rose ; the two are similar in that in each th*'' 
narrator tries to gain access to the Lady, and is helped or encouraged t. 
one set of allegorical personages, and hindered or discouraged by another 
set ; and, more particularly, in that Danger is in each case one of the dis- 
couragers. In the Roman de la Rose, Bel-Acueil allows the Lover to 
approach the Rose (11, 2886-2918) ; Dangier expels the Lover (11, 3013- 
3053). In The Bouge of Courte, Danger taunts the author: Desire en- 
courages him. (For these suggestions and references, I am indebted to Mr. 
S. L. Wolif.) 



147 

gorical personages, Dissimulation, Favor, Flattery, Debauch- 
ery, and others, the vices that rule the Court, are enemies of 
the young aspirant to Court favor, and attempt to injure him. 
The would-be courtier has to struggle against these evil per- 
sons, and finally loses the fight. 

The poet sleeps in the port of Harwich, and dreams that he 
sees sailing into harbor a goodly ship^* laden with costly mer- 
chandise. The ship is boarded by traders, also by the poet. 
There is much confusion until it is learned that the ship is 
the ** Bouge of Court," and the owner Dame Sauncepere ; the 
merchandise is called '' Favor," and costs dear. The poet 
presses forward to behold the fair owner, but is stopped and 
taunted by Danger, her chief attendant. But Desire encour- 
ages him to persevere, and gives him a jewel called " bonne 
aventure," telling him to make friends with Fortune, who 
steers the ship. Every one is now suing for the friendship of 
Fortune, who distributes favor to them all. Thus ends the 
prologue. 

The ship now puts to sea : 

" The sayle is vp, Fortune ruleth our helme, 
We wante no wynde to passe now ouer all ; 
Fauore we haue tougher than ony elme. 
That wyll abyde and neuer from vs fall : 
But vnder hony ofte tyme lyeth bytter gall ; 
For, as me thoughte, in our shyppe I dyde see 
Full subtyll persones, in nombre foure and thre." 

These four and three disagreeable passengers are hangers on 
and friends of Fortune, named Flattery, Suspicion, Disdain, 
Riot, Dissimulation, Harvey Hafter, and Deceit — the seven sins 
of the Court. They are inimical to the new courtier, who thus 
far has fared so well, and whisper about him and conspire 
against him. Each draws him into conversation with sinister 
intent. At last, to avoid being killed, the poet is about to leap 
into the sea, when he awakes. 

" This ship shows the influence of Brandt's Narrenschiff. But Skelton 

includes in his ship only one class of Brandt's fools — that of the false, 

flattering courtiers. See Herford, Studies in the Literary Relations of 
England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 355-6. 



148 

This allegorical form/^ conventional as it is, Skelton adapts 
to strictly contemporary conditions and so breathes into it a cer- 
tain amount of vitality. The story lacks progress, and is too 
abrupt in its close, but it is powerful in its way and remarkable 
for certain features new to English satire — features character- 
istic of the age of individualism that was just in the dawn. 
One of these features is the beginning of character study. It 
is description rather than genuine characterization, and the 
figures are not individuals, but types. Yet even this is an ad- 
vance beyond what has preceded it. Favell (Flattery), Sus- 
pecte, Harvey Hafter, and Subtylte, are indistinct, though their 
speeches are somewhat individual ; but Dysdayne and Ryotte are 
on the borderland of characterization. We see in these vividly 
pictured types, which are foreshadowed by those in Piers Plow- 
man, how allegory is at last passing into characterization. 
Here we have a description of Disdayne : 

" Wyth that, as he departed soo fro me, 
Anone ther mette with him, as me thoughte, 
A man, but wonderly besene was he; 
He loked hawte, he sette eche man at noughte; 
His gawdy garment with scornnys was all wrought; 
With indygnacyon lyned was his hode ; 
He frowned, as he wolde swere by Cocke's blode; 
He bote the lyppe, he loked passynge coye ; 
His face was belymmed, as byes had him stounge; 
It was no tyme with him to jape nor toye ; 
Enuye hath wasted his lyuer and his lounge. 
Hatred by the herte so had hym wrounge. 
That he loked pale as asshes to my syghte : 
Dysdayne, I wene, this comerous crabes hyghte." 

Also foreshadowed by Langland^^ was the description of low 
life, introduced in Riot's speech — disgusting, but real and, in its 
way, effective. Comparatively new to English satire as is this 
kind of description, it shows that at last men are opening their 
eyes to see vividly the world about them. The Renaissance 
has come, and with it have come realism and characterization. 

But Skelton's power of description finds yet more effective 

^' See the " Allegorical Satire," supra, p, 26 f. 
" See supra, p. 76 f. 



149 

scope in his satire on drunken women, The Tunning of Elynour 
Riimmynge. '' Tunning " means brewing. Elynour Rum- 
mynge was the notorious keeper of an ale-house favorably 
known to the courtiers of Henry VIII. In this picture of the 
degradation of the women of the lower classes, Skelton de- 
scribes an evening in the ale-house, with all the scurrility and 
vulgar talk, the low morals and manners typical of such a place 
in such an epoch. Its contrast to The Bouge of Court is com- 
plete. From the court we descend to the hovel ; from the vices 
of the upper classes we turn to those of the lower ; in place of 
allegory we meet intense realism ; instead of form, we find six 
hundred and twenty-three lines of Skeltonical formlessness. 
Despite its thoroughly disgusting suh]tct-ma.tter, Elynour Rum- 
niynge presents a picture of low life unapproached in previous 
English satire. Its form is entirely objective; the picture is 
drawn to speak for itself, without comment from the satirist. 
From these purely social Satires, which are of general appli- 
cation and are free from contemporary allusions, we turn to that 
strange medley of moral, social, personal, and political satire, 
which Skelton calls Speke Parrot. The form of this unspeak- 
able production is somewhat conventional. Parrots had re- 
cently, since the discovery of America, become household pets, 
and were supposed to possess wisdom as well as the power of 
speech. The comment on current affairs is put into the mouth 
of the wise bird, and the speech of the parrot contains a cer- 
tain amount of character. It speaks a confused medley of lan- 
guages and dwells on a confused medley of themes. The form 
is stanzaic, rime royal, and the Satire is a reflective diatribe 
against the times in general. The poem does not progress ; its 
stanzas might be indefinitely shifted without either adding to or 
detracting from its unity of form. The subject-matter is divi- 
sible into three classes : first, many of those vague and general 
censures that seem to be of universal application ; again, more 
specific accusations which especially apply to this particular 
period, such as, 

" So myche translacion in to Englyshe confused " ; 

" So myche decay of monesteries and of relygious places " ; 



150 

and, finally, references that could apply only to Cardinal Wol- 
sey : 

*' So bolde a braggyng bocher, and flesshe sold so dere " ; 
" So mangye a mastyfe curre, the grete grey houndes pere." 

In the main, the theme is a very extraordinary mingling of 
general moralizing and sharp personalities. Of the latter Wol- 
sey is the target, and this fact shows a change in the poet's atti- 
tude toward his former friend. Wolsey's public career began 
in 1 5 14; his rapid rise to power was equalled by his rapid 
growth of arrogance and personal ostentation. This accession 
of pride and pomp must have alienated many who were once 
his friends — certainly it alienated Skelton, for his allusions in 
Speke Parrot can point only to Wolsey, and he refers repeat- 
edly to the arrogance of the *' bragging butcher," the '' mastiff 
cur," who fancies himself the peer of the great greyhounds ; the 
" Proud prelate " who makes such an assumption of grace, with 
so little grace within. These scattered references to Wolsey 
in Speke Parrot show Skelton's change of attitude toward the 
great minister. He makes no allusions to Wolsey's political 
moves ; and this would seem to indicate the later date of Colyn 
Cloiite, the second of Skelton's three most elaborate Satires, 
which alludes to Wolsey unmistakably and at greater length. 

Colyn Clout e is twelve hundred and seventy lines in length. 
Its verse is the characteristic Skeltonical form already described. 
The method is that of direct attack, sometimes addressed to the 
objects of the satire. The figure of Colyn Cloute represents the 
laborer — both rustic and urban — the hard-headed, not over 
acute, observer, whose righteous wrath has at last been excited 
by the abuses he sees about him : 

" My name is Colyn Cloute, 
I purpose to shake oute 
All my connyng bagge, 
Lyke a clerkely hagge ; 
For though my ryme be ragged, 
Tattered and lagged. 
Rudely rayne beaten. 
Rusty and moughte eaten. 
If ye take well therwith. 
It hath in it some pyth." 



151 

He reports what he hears against the Church — the common 
complaints in all men's mouths, and occasionally calls upon 
the ecclesiastics to disprove these slanderous charges. But this 
ironical tone is forgotten, as the satirist lays aside his thin dis- 
guise and pursues his quarry more eagerly. The subject-mat- 
ter shows no unity of treatment, the form no progress and no 
organism. The whole is a thoroughly Skeltonical medley ; 
constantly digressing, yet actually making every utterance con- 
tribute something to its central theme. 

The subject-matter of Colyn Cloute is purely ecclesiastical, 
and includes an attack on every order of the clergy. The pre- 
lates, their pride, selfishness, lack of spirituality, form the 
principal theme ; but the friars, too, are bitterly arraigned. All 
Skelton's charges are in substance those of preceding cen- 
turies, but presented in far more earnest and effective fashion. 
There is nothing remote or academic in the work of this scholar 
who can write for the common man. Here is a satirist who 
studies the people and voices their complaints ; a satirist of 
strong moral convictions, yet not without his own peculiar 
humor. However general the complaint, it is very much alive ; 
though without personalities, except in certain passages which 
point unmistakably to Wolsey as a type of prelatical wicked- 
ness. The partly ironical tone of Colyn Cloute; its humor, 
arising from the perception of inconsistency, rather bitter, 
grim, indignant ; its moral earnestness, speaking in every line ; 
its rebuke that almost becomes sheer invective — all these are 
the expression not of the man who merely contemplates, but 
of the active reformer. 

It is evident that Skelton is of the long and honorable line 
of satirist-reformers that began with Walter Map. He would 
change corrupt practices, but he is no heretic ; for, while a 
reformer in his moral creed, he yet despises Wycliffe, Luther, 
and all their following. Skelton's subject-matter, also, while 
so similar to that of his predecessors, is no literary inheritance. 
Its whole interest and value lies in its immediate origin in 
actual life. In its strong statement and popular expression we 
see a need and a prophecy of that Reformation now at last 



152 

about to come — a reformation extending, however, far beyond 
what Skelton either expected or desired. 

But this spirit of reform carried Skelton himself far be- 
yond the generalities of Colyn Cloiite. It was not only ec- 
clesiastical reform the satirist desired, but also political. Wol- 
sey in Colyn Clout e is an incident ; Wolsey in the later and 
more virulent Satire, Why Come Ye Not to Courte, is the 
prime object of attack. In the years intervening between the 
composition of the earlier and that of the later Satire, Skel- 
ton seems to have been dividing his time between his rectory at 
Diss and the Court of Henry VIII. During these years he saw 
the astonishing rise of Wolsey to greater and greater power. 
In 1 5 19, the man whom Skelton regarded as the archetype of 
ecclesiastical pride and debauchery, was made the Pope's sole 
legate a latere; in 1522, he was maintaining war against France 
without the sanction of Parliament, and was levying a loan of a 
tenth on lay subjects and of a fourth on the clergy. In 1523, 
when Convocation and Parliament met, the minister demanded 
from the clergy one half their annual revenue, from the laity, 
four shillings on the pound, and actually got half the latter 
amount. Such exactions were intolerable. Both clergy and 
laity were groaning under these burdens, while the great min- 
ister was luxuriously domiciled in his palace of Hampton Court. 
Wolsey's influence over the king seemed unlimited. Parliament 
did his bidding; war was levied at his command. His Court 
outshone that of the King: gentleman were his servants, and 
great nobles waited on his summons. The mighty Earl of 
Northumberland himself seemed afraid of the ''butcher's 
dog." Moving among these conditions, watching this extra- 
ordinary career, Skelton finally saw in Wolsey not merely the 
type of ecclesiastical wickedness depicted in Colyn Chute, but 
also the type of political tyranny satirized in Why Come Ye 
Not to Courte. 

The form of this virulent personal invective of over twelve 
hundred lines, is that of a direct address to those who shun 
the Court on account of Wolsey's arrogance. Wolsey is the 
unifying theme to which, after numberless digressions, Skel- 



153 

ton always returns with some bitter gibe, each one more sting- 
ing than the last. In the object of his satire Skelton naturally 
sees nothing good. Wolsey's great traits, his public services, 
are forgotten or ignored. He is represented as utterly de- 
praved, and thoroughly incompetent for his exalted offices ; 
yet master of both king and Court. Why Come Ye Not to 
Coiirte is perhaps the bitterest personal Satire in literature. 
Through its historical significance, it evokes profound interest. 
Whatever may have been Skelton's private quarrel with Wol- 
sey — we know little of their personal relations — this Satire 
must have been largely inspired by a grievance not private, 
but public. Skelton is again the voice of the people, lifted 
against what they deemed intolerable tyranny. Such a protest, 
uttered in the days of Wolsey's supreme power, indicated su- 
perb moral courage. As it was, Skelton had to fly for his life 
to sanctuary in Westminster, and there he died, probably 
in 1529. 

Humor in Why Come Ye Not to Courte there is none; nor 
is there any moralizing; but invective against Wolsey, in- 
spired by bitter indignation, violent, even terrible at times, 
always thoroughly alive, there is in plenty. Indeed, Wolsey, 
as has been said, is the unifying theme. As Skelton reviews 
the foreign and domestic affairs of the kingdom, — dishonor 
abroad and discord at home, religious, political, and social dis- 
sension, — he sees in Wolsey the author of it all. 

The Scots need not fear us ; we are not sufficiently united 
among ourselves to give them trouble. We are bought and 
sold by the foreigners, while our proud and pompous Cardinal 
riots at Hampton Court. What news of Lancashire? of 
Cheshire? of the Scotch? of Lord Dacres? 

" The Erie of Northumberlande 
Dare take nothynge on hande : 
Our barons be so bolde, 
Into a mouse hole they wolde 
Rynne away and crepe, 
Lyke a mayny of shepe; 
Dare not loke out at dur 
For drede of the mastyue cur. 
For drede of the bochers dogge 
Wold wyrry them lyke an hogge." 



154 

Where are the great nobles of the realm? Why come they 
not to court? To the king's court, or to Hampton Court? 
Why, to the Cardinal's Court which overshadows that of the 
king! This shameless, ambitious, profligate butcher's dog has 
forgotten his humble origin. His royal master raised him from 
obscurity to power, and yet he repays the king with base 
ingratitude : 

'* How be it the primordyall 
Of his wretched originall, 
And his base progeny, 
And his gresy genealogy, 
He came of the sank royall. 
That was cast out of a bochers stall." 

After reiterated charges against Wolsey, — blackening his 
character as man, statesman, and ecclesiastic, branding him as 
the false adviser of the king and the scourge of the people, — 
Skelton ends his terrible arraignment with an apology. Why 
write satire? 

" For trewly and vnfayned, 
I am forcebly constrayned, 
At luuynals request. 
To wryght of this glorious gest, 
Of this vayne gloryous best. 
His fame to be encrest 
At euery solempne f eest ; 
Quia difficile est 
Satiram non scrihere." 

Replete with contemporary allusions to men and things, 
this remarkable piece of invective shows nothing of classical 
influence in style or form. English of the English it is — 
rugged, violent, frequently coarse, even repulsive in its de- 
tails, and yet at the same time courageous, original, and ef- 
fective. 

And these qualities characterize Skelton as a satirist. There 
is nothing beautiful in his satire, but there is something strong. 
After every possible detraction, he yet remains, with his Eng- 
lish love of right, hatred of abuses, and splendid courage, the 



155 

great figure of the pre-EHzabethan Satire. The power to speak 
plainly, to hit hard, he had both by tradition and inheritance 
and by nature. His material came straight from the world 
about him in ample measure. 

On succeeding satire, Skelton's form had happily little in- 
fluence. But it is not from this point of view that this satirist 
interests us : he is the protestant voice crying aloud in the 
wilderness against the evils of his time; the herald of refor- 
mation and a new order. It was many a year before the line 
of English satirists could boast so effective and imposing a 
figure as that of John Skelton. 

IV 

Contemporary with Dunbar and Skelton lived the learned 
and pious clergyman Alexander Barclay — a humanist who, 
despite his mastery of the New Learning of the Renaissance, 
used in his satire a tradition distinctly medieval. Translation 
though it was, Barclay's The Ship of Fools was so well 
adapted to English conditions and became so thoroughly iden- 
tified with English literature, that it may well be considered a 
link in the chain of the English Satire. 

Sebastian Brandt, German scholar and moralist, produced 
in 1494 that voluminous compendium of medieval ethics which 
he called the Narrenschiff. This poem takes its name from a 
ship carrying all the fools of earth, of every manner and 
order, and forms a vast panorama of society, picturing all 
sorts and conditions of men and drawing from their foolish 
lives grave lessons of wholesome counsel. The Narrenschiff 
met with universal popularity, and brought to Brandt enduring 
fame. 

This great work made a powerful appeal to a nature very 
similar to Brandt's — that of Alexander Barclay, probably 
Scotch by birth but English by adoption. Barclay, scholar 
and moralist, afterwards rector of St. Mary Ottery, was 
twenty years old when the Narrenschiff appeared. The young 
scholar assimilated the German work, perhaps largely through 
a Latin translation, found it wholesome for doctrine, universal 
in its application and therefore as well adapted to the English 



156 

as to the Germans; and in 1508 gave it forth to his own 
people in his famous translation The Ship of Fools}'' 

On first opening The Ship of Fools we are impressed with 
its enormous length of fourteen thousand lines ; then with its 
multitude of emblematic pictures. What is this quaint pon- 
derous work that has given both author and translator literary 
immortality, and what is its position in the history of the 
English Satire ? ^^ 

First of all, Barclay's variations from his original are not 
of great importance. He omits practically nothing, while his 
additions are, for our present purpose, insignificant. A few 
personalities, relating either to himself or to those whom he 
wished to censure ; a few patriotic passages ; an attack on 
French fashions ; a diatribe against false religions — these are 
additions of small bulk and importance, and in no whit vitally 
alter the character of the original. Yet, as concerns the his- 
tory of English satire, Barclay is an original satirist, and his 
Ship of Fools native to the English soil. This book continued 
many of the traditions of previous satire in England ; in it 
English society at large found itself mirrored ; subsequent Eng- 
lish satire indirectly owed something to its influence. Hence, 
through this discussion, Barclay's name will be used to repre- 
sent the author, whether the touch be that of the German or 
of the English writer. 

So much for the relation of the Ship of Fools to the Narren- 
schiff. Barclay's purpose in writing is stated in his prose 
argument, where he tells us that " the present book might 
well have been called the Satyr — that is ' the reprehension of 
foolishness,' " and goes on to say that, as the old satirical poets 
in divers poesies reproved the sins and the ills of the people 
at that time living, so he essays to follow in their illustrious 
footsteps and do his duty by the present age. This is well ; 
and, furthermore, according to the prologue furnished by 
Locher, 

" Sothely he hathe taken vpon hym the translacion of this 

" The Ship of Fools, ed. Jamieson, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1874. 
"See Alden, pp. 15-21, for a brief but scholarly treatment of the relation 
of The Ship of Fools to the Classical Satire. 



157 

present Boke neyther for hope of rewarde nor laude of man: 
but onely for the holsome instruccion commodyte and Doctryne 
of wysdome, and to dense the vanyte and madnes of folysshe 
people of whom ouer great nombre is in the Royalme of 
Englonde." 

A fitting introduction to The Ship of Fools \ Permeated 
with " wholesome instruction " and " doctrine of wisdom " as 
it is, tedious, often intolerable though it be, never does it 
swerve from its moral purpose either for " hope of reward or 
laud of man." It is a moral treatise, a system of ethics, a 
vast didactic poem written on a characteristic medieval plan. 
Humor plays no part in such a scheme ; neither does acute 
observation, nor profound knowledge of human nature. These 
latter qualities are not compatible with that utter lack of moral 
perspective shown in placing on the same moral plane, side by 
side, as equal sinners, the comparatively innocent geographer 
whose only fault is an untoward disposition to visit foreign 
lands, and the criminal who has been guilty of arson or mur- 
der. In fact, Barclay's disposition is to rebuke the fool more 
sharply than the criminal. 

Such is the moral character of the book. Its literary 
character is marked by an utter absence of poetic or imagina- 
tive qualities. A sermon in verse, with illustrations; a twice- 
told tale ; a vast compilation of ancient commonplaces, now 
brought together into something approaching unity; it is, 
withal, a book. Some of its qualities are even transitional and 
prophetic : not wholly of the old time, they dimly foreshadow 
the Renaissance of newer and more vital things in literature. 
Yet this great sermon mightily pleased the readers of its 
day, became the popular work of its period, and bred a host 
of little imitations. To a modern mind its popularity amply 
demonstrates the contemporary lack of good reading matter. 
Maybe its precise arrangement and orderly classification 
pleased the early sixteenth century reader, accustomed to 
scholastic tradition; perhaps its clear commonplaces made it 
easy reading; possibly, its realistic, illustrative types gave it 
a novel character ; but most probably its instant and prodigious 



158 

popularity was won by its long series of really remarkable 
emblematic wood-cuts, which constitute the chief interest of 
the book for the latter-day reader, and which are still striking 
and extremely effective. For the sake of the interesting pic- 
tures, the reader of that day perhaps endured the sermonic 
comment — entirely reversing the good Barclay's intention, but 
probably effecting his purpose quite as well. 

In form, the Ship of Fools is a didactic poem of about two 
thousand rime royal stanzas, the whole divided into one hun- 
dred and twenty-three sections. All the follies of human 
society are passed in review — for folly in this system of ethics 
includes both vice and crime. The criminal is the fool gone 
mad. A great ship is about to sail to some distant port and 
into this ship are to be gathered all the fools of the world, 
from the fool who fills his shelves with books he cannot read 
to the fool who does violence to his neighbor. Every trade, 
every profession, every order of society, furnishes its quota. 
Folly is of one hundred and ten distinct varieties — an advance 
beyond Lydgate, who found only " three-score and three," as 
we may recall. Each folly receives its share of attention, is 
catalogued, rebuked, and passed on. Brandt and Barclay do 
not indulge in burlesque, or show character in action. Their 
method is almost wholly descriptive ; their form that of direct 
address on the part of the satirist. 

Aside from its length, perhaps nothing in this vast poem is 
so striking as its lack of any progress or climax. There is 
here no idea of structure, no organic whole. Not only may 
the order of the Follies be indefinitely varied without doing 
violence to the form, but even the stanzas of any one section 
may be shifted at random without affecting the sense. To- 
gether with this lack of organic unity goes a tedious diffuse- 
ness of style. Barclay proses interminably. Ten stanzas 
might well be boiled down into one with a gain in interest and 
in solidity of structure. The style is remarkably uniform, 
rarely varying from an even tenor of mediocrity — though even 
The Ship of Fools has its " purple patches." 

Despite the allusions to the ship in Barclay's two prologues 



159 

— one verse, the other prose — the poem is in no sense a narra- 
tive. Indeed, when we reach the body of the poem, we find 
the initial idea entirely forgotten, and no further allusion to 
a ship or a voyage is forthcoming. The ship has presumably 
long since begun its voyage, and the moralist now confines our 
attention to a description of the passengers. 

What a motley company is this of the Fools of the World ! 
The Fool of Books, The Evil Men of Law and Judgment, The 
Fool of Prodigality, the Fool of Avarice, Fools of New Fash- 
ions in Dress, the Old Fool, the Negligent Father, The Fool 
of Strife, The Tale-Bearer, The Fool of Broken Friendships, 
The Improvident Fool, The Fool of Disordered Love, The 
Drunken Fool, The Unprofitably Rich, The Blasphemous Fool, 
The Envious Fool, The Fool who marries an old woman for 
her money. The Impatient Fool, The Sensual Fool, The Cler- 
ical Fool, The Fool of Geography, The Fool of Astrology — but 
the list is endless and the range well-nigh universal. The 
great range and complexity of this material make it difficult 
to classify. Barclay does not confine himself to the reprehen- 
sion of abstract follies as did Lydgate ; nor do^s he merely 
reprimand each class of society in turn as illustrating these 
follies. His method is almost as varied as his material. So- 
cial, religious, even some personal satire, make up this gigantic 
pot-pourri. 

Barclay's most distinct gain over the majority of his 
predecessors consists in his method of illustrating an abstract 
folly by the life of an individual. This is his characteristic 
method, and consists in illustrating the folly of envy, say, by 
a realistic description of an envious man. Here is a step 
toward characterization, though the result is, of course, at 
best a type, and often a very wooden type. Still, this method 
renders the satire on abstract follies a hundred fold more 
effective than was the method of the medieval satirist, who, 
like Barclay, took up folly after folly, but inveighed against 
them in a fashion entirely abstract. 

This, however, while perhaps Barclay's most characteristic, 
is not his only method. Here and there in The Ship of Fools, 
we find the old medieval satire on social classes ; as in the 



160 

attack on " Evil Counsellors, Judges and Men of Law " (vol. 
I, p. 24) ; and a modification of this method in " The Extor- 
tion of Knights, Great Officers, Men of War, Scribes and 
Practicers of the Law " (vol. 2, p. 80) — where one particular 
vice is illustrated not by a single individual, but by a whole 
class — thus uniting the two methods in one portrayal. 

Neither does Barclay altogether abandon the old way of 
attacking vices entirely in the abstract, for he arraigns Avar- 
ice, Covetousness, and Prodigality without illustrative charac- 
terization or comment (vol. i, p. 29). Apart from the medi- 
eval Satire on social classes, Barclay indulges in what may be 
called a classification by moral orders, when he inveighs 
against " Card-Players and Dicers " (vol. 2, p. 69) ; though, 
to be sure, such is but a modification of the method by which 
the satirist attacks a particular vice as embodied in an indi- 
vidual. Again, in at least two instances, he inveighs against 
a folly and confines its exhibition not to an individual, but to 
one class — the clergy. In the " Clattering and Babbling of 
Clergy in the Choir," he says of the gossiping priest: 

" He rennyth about lyke to a pursuyuant 
With his whyte staffe mouynge from syde to syde 
Where he is lenynge talys ar nat skant 
But in one place nat longe doth he abyde 
So he and other them selfe so lewdly gyde 
Without deuocian, by theyr lewd neglygence 
That no thynge can bynde theyr tunges to sylence."^^ 

Such is the social satire of The Ship of Fools. Its religious 
satire is of the same order and bound up with the former 
variety. Against plurality of church livings and begging Bar- 
clay grows stern, but otherwise he handles the clergy gently. 
Of personal satire we find very little, for Barclay was not the 
man to single out an individual for chastisement; and this 
makes his bitter yet humorous reference of his neighbor 
" Mansell of Ottery " ^^ all the more striking. 

Barclay's remedy for all these follies which permeate so- 

^^ The Ship of Fools, vol. 2, p. 155. 

^ And to eight of his neighbors who belong to the class of " fools who 
will not learn " ; see vol. 2, p. 82. 



161 

ciety is, like that proposed by Langland, no great iconoclastic 
reform, no revolution, no violent change in the old order, 
simply more religion. Let men do right: this will purify 
society and rid the world of folly, which is another name for 
madness. This theory is set forth throughout the great 
length of Barclay's treatise ; through all its one hundred and 
twenty-three sections, each a little *' Satire," or rather, if you 
will, each a little ethical treatise on a particular folly, vice, or 
crime, in which the worthy philosopher inculcates his moral 
with threats of hell and hopes of paradise. 

Barclay lived in interesting times, but contemporary affairs 
find little echo in his Ship of Fools. The material is mainly 
an aftermath from the past. It gives one the impression of 
a bookish origin ; it is the work of a man who elaborated a 
system of ethics in his study, and not from first-hand obser- 
vation of mankind. Yet with all of this, here and there come 
flashes of insight into actual contemporary life, an approach 
toward the picturing of social conditions. Even sketches of 
low-life are not wanting. The conduct of servants when es- 
caped from their master's authority, is in itself something new, 
but forms one of the series of the genre pictures that are 
scattered here and there in English satire from the time of 
Langland : 

" Whan mayster and maystres in bed ar to rest 
The hordes ar spred, the dores open echone 
Than farys the Coke and Butteler of the best 
Other both togyther, or eche of theme alone 
With wyne and ale tyll all the best be gone 
s By galons and potels they spende without care 

That whiche theyr lorde for his owne mouth dyd spare." 

A step towards characterization and observation of life is taken 
in " The Card Players and Dicers " (Vol. 2, p. 69) ; and again 
in the diatribe against Beggars, which is to be imitated in later 
satire :^^ 

" Such yonge laddys as lusty ar of age 
Myghty and stronge, and wymen in lyke wyse 
Wanton and yonge and lusty of cowrage 

^^ See infra, p. 117 f. 



162 

Gyueth them selfe vtterly to thus gyse 
The cause is that they labour do despyse 
For theyr mynde is in ydylnes to be styll 
Or els in vyce to wander at theyr wyll." 

Against Geographers and Astrologers Barclay is especially 
severe ; and this material, comparatively new to English satire, 
except for the astrological satire in Chaucer, is also largely 
contemporary. The new mania for exploration, so distaste- 
ful to the home-staying Brandt, was at least as much English 
as German, and this satire against " the foolish description 
and inquisition of divers countries and regions " comes 
strangely from the pen of an Englishman ! 

Barclay's verse, always unimaginative and prosaic, suffering, 
in the main, from a deadly mediocrity, rises in the stanzas 
against Astrology and Geographers, into a style at least strong 
and effective, if not poetical ; e. g., 

" Some gaze vpon wandrynge of the mone 
Another deuysyth the cours of Phebus clere 
Gasynge on the Sonne at mornynge nyght or none 
And by other planetis shewyth what doth apere 
Howe some of them whan they do gyde the yere 
Engendreth plenty pleasour myrth and ioy 
And howe some other doth man and beste destroy." 

But despite these passages of some beauty and power, Bar- 
clay, in his style and material, rather harks back to medievalism. 
For instance, he is thoroughly medieval in his use of the 
classics. In this respect he is, like Skelton, in the Renaissance, 
but not of it. Classical writers furnish him with endless 
illustrations and quotations, but he knows very little of the 
breadth of classical humanity, and of classical method and form, 
nothing at all. Classical satire does indeed show its influence 
in Barclay's method of picturing a folly illustrated in an indi- 
vidual, thus producing a type. Horace did this, and Juvenal. 
But their types are more elaborate, have more vitality, are char- 
acterizations rather than descriptions. Barclay seems to build 
his type on one folly : the folly is uppermost, not the individual. 
This is largely the method of Theophrastus and the English 



163 

"character" writers of the seventeenth century. The class- 
ical satirists did not thus work from without inward, but seemed 
to select an individual as an illustration of a folly, rather than 
to construct a type upon a folly as its foundation. 

Glimpses of characterization had for centuries existed in 
English satire, but they were never uppermost, and had been 
at length obscured, perhaps by the ecclesiastical influence that 
created the earlier and typical Morality play, which embodied 
a system of abstractions in itself antipodal to the picturing 
of actual life. From this deadening medievalism English satire 
at the beginning of the sixteenth century was just emerging. 
The emancipation was greatly hastened by the influence of Bar- 
clay's German importation. Brandt, a classical scholar, was in- 
fluenced by classical method to the extent already mentioned — 
a half-way achievement, but a triumph in its way, an advance 
beyond the medieval. The change was needed in England. 
Barclay felt the thrill imparted by the Renaissance, attempted 
the closer observation, applied himself to the picturing of con- 
temporary life. Biit the old order imposes itself upon the class- 
icist, and the result is a queer and interesting medley of tones 
and methods. Barclay's psychology and ethics are medieval, 
showing that exact classification, that perfect system, which 
takes no thought of the individual ; — apart from life, remote, 
cold, dead. All this was upon him, and he could not throw 
off the cumbersome garment ; hence the one hundred and ten 
varieties of follies in The Ship of Fools. But just here comes 
an advance in method, gained by Brandt from the classics, 
doubtless, but still, in a small desultory way, something of an 
inheritance in English Satire. This new method — that of pre- 
senting a vice or folly as illustrated by an individual — has been 
referred to. In this consists the chief interest of The Ship of 
Fools to the student of English literature. 

This method is to have its influence. A host of minor imita- 
tions, such as Cocke Lorell and his brethren, for a generation 
or more, are to adapt and elaborate each his own peculiar 
feature of the great work. The Ship of Fools is too large 
in scope to be effective. It is universal in its way, but this 
universality is not of a high creative type ; what it gains in 



164 

universality it loses in strength and virility. But its imitators 
did not so err. They elaborated one feature of their original, 
lost in universality, but gained in force. 

Glancing for a moment, in conclusion, from Barclay's influ- 
ence to his sources, we observe again that the " fool satire " 
goes back to Nigellus Wireker ; more directly, hov^ever, to 
Lydgate, and that Barclay's gain over Lydgate is tremendous. 
Yet Barclay's work is, of course, of German origin. It is 
doubtful if an Englishman would ever have originated this 
ponderous ethical treatise. For The Ship of Fools is in fact 
no ideal Satire, lacking in humor as it is and with so large 
a constructive element. However, German though it may be, 
it fits into the history of English satire in a very remarkable 
fashion. 

From previous English satire, Barclay, like Skelton, received 
much : — but, as we have seen, Barclay and Skelton, though con- 
temporaries, had little in common in their literary methods. 
Skelton is the voice of the people militant ; Barclay is the 
student, contemplative. Yet each possesses a certain English 
heritage. Skelton's we have already considered. Barclay's 
is an unswerving and permeating — even obstrusive — moral pur- 
pose, a serious, didactic tone, a manner capable of forceful 
thrusts. 

Apart from its direct imitations, the influence of The Ship 
of Fools over subsequent satirical literature is not so apparent. 
Although this influence can be traced in other literary genres, 
neither the renascence of the classical Satire, which Wyatt in- 
augurated, nor any subsequent satire of the classical type, owed 
anything to Barclay. It is safe to say, however, that The Ship 
of Fools at least indirectly fostered the manifestation of the 
satirist's personality, realistic method, contemporary por- 
traiture ; however remote, tedious, ineffective, academic, Bar- 
clay's style and method may seem in comparison with those of 
his successors. 

V 

But Barclay's literary activity did not cease with the pub- 
lication of The Ship of Fools. Mantuan, the Italian humanist 
and Latin poet, had imitated the eclogues of Virgil in a series 



165 

of moralizing, didactic poems, pseudo-pastoral, which he 
termed " satirical." In turn, Barclay wrote, perhaps about 
15 14, five eclogues, ^^ two of which were imitated, in form and 
subject-matter, from those of Mantuan; while three were para- 
phrases of the work of Aeneas Silvius. These five " eclogues " 
are pastoral dialogues, which vary in length from eight hun- 
dred and fifty to over thirteen hundred lines, and are written 
in pentameter couplets of fair regularity. They have in truth 
very little that is bucolic about them, and not much local color. 
Innocent of humor, destructive in tone, often vituperative in 
style, each has far more right to the designation of " Satire " 
than has The Ship of Fools, though all are in fact rather di- 
dactic than satirical. 

Barclay's first three eclogues are adaptations — with large 
additions — from the Miseriae Curialium of ^neas Silvius, 
Pope Pius II. At great length, with wonderful and tedious 
minuteness, they describe the life of the courtier; and, al- 
lowing for exaggeration, present some interesting pictures of 
contemporary life at court. This court-satire connects itself, 
in its distinctive tone, with other court satire of this new 
period. Such criticism of court-life could have had no sig- 
nificance for the English reader of a former generation ; and 
even now, its foreign source and its obvious imitation — almost 
translation — of Italian models, rather vitiate any attempt to 
connect it with previous or contemporary English satire. 

In his Fourth Eclogue, Barclay, with somewhat greater 
originality, indulges in literary satire, and bewails the neglect 
of poetry. Minalcas, the shepherd-poet, in appealing for aid 
to Codrus, the rich shepherd, declares that his desires are 
moderate and his wants but few : 

" I aske no palace, nor lodging curious. 
No bed of state, of rayment sumptuous. 

Grant me a living sufficient and small. 
And voyd of troubles, I aske no more at all; 
But with that little I hold myself content, 

"Spenser Soc. Pub., 1885; for fifth eclogue and parts of four others, see 
also Percy Soc. Pub., vol. 22, ed. Fairholt. 



166 

If sauce of sorowe my minde not torment; 

Of the court of Rome, forsooth, I have heard tell, 

With forked cappes it folly is to mell." 

The Fifth Eclogue, The Cytezen and Uplondyshman, or 
Amintas and Faiistiis, is an imitation from Mantuan. Two 
shepherds debate concerning the relative desirability of town 
and country life. Faustus utters a lengthy and detailed in- 
dictment against the traditional sins of the city, in a tone severe 
enough, but in a style general, commonplace, totally without 
allusion of any kind, without humor, severe, didactic, and 
thoroughly medieval. In its attack on hucksters and coster- 
mongers, presumptuous fools who essay theological argument, 
flattering friars, apothecaries, whose craft " — is all frauds 
and gylefull policy," — in all this the eclogue continues the 
medieval tradition of the class-satire. Of this class-satire, the 
attack on Alchemists and Magicians is by far the best, and 
reminds us forcibly of the Astronomer section in the Ship of 
Fools: 

" As alkemystys, wenynge by polecy 
Nature to alter, and coyne to multyply; 
Some wasshe rude metall with lycours manyfolde 
Of herbes, weynge to turn it into golde; 
All pale and smoky by suche contynuall. 
And after labour they lose theyr lyf e and all ! 
Another sorte is to this not moche unlyke, 
Whiche spende theyr tymes in wretched art magyke, 
Therby supposynge some treasore to have founde, 
Whiche many yeres is hydde within the grounde ! " 

After their publication in 1540, these satirical eclogues of 
Barclay's, though foreign in their origin and without precedent 
in English literature, had yet a perceptible influence over Eliza- 
bethan pastoral poets. In their satirical tone, often approach- 
ing invective, they bear fruit in the eclogues of Googe, in the 
Shepherd's Calendar of Spenser, and in the sporadic attempts 
of other Elizabethans. 

So far it has seemed advisable, owing to the comparative 
scarcity of any one variety of satire in any one period, to 



167 

adopt for our material the chronological rather than the topical 
treatment. Between 1520 and 1550, however, the bulk of the 
social satire, its largely anonymous character, together with the 
fact that it was all produced within a short period, render the 
topical treatment indispensable. The same is true of the 
religious satire of this era — the satire of the Reformation; 
though in this variety we meet with some celebrated names, 
notably that of Sir David Lyndsay. 



CHAPTER VI 
Social Satire, i 520-1 550; Satire of the Reformation 

Social changes under Henry VIII. — Social satire. — Nowadays. — Manner 
of the World Nowadays. — Treatise of this Gallant. — The Ruin of a Realm. 
— Dissolution of the monasteries. — " The Pilgrimage of Grace." — An Ex- 
hortation to the Nobles and Commons of the North. — Social satire under 
Edward VI. — Vox Populi, Vox Dei. — The Satire on Woman. — The Proud 
Wives Pater Noster. — The Satire on Rogues. — Cocke Lorells Bote. — The 
Hye Way to the Spyttell Hous. — Other Satires on Fools and on Rogues. — 
Relation of such satire to that of the later Moralities. — The Satire of the 
Reformation. — Its varieties. — Its general lack of literary merit. — Tyndale's 
New Testament. — The Replycacion. — Rede Me and Be Not Wrothe. — Its 
form, tone, and subject-matter. — Its value as a Satire. — A Proper Dialogue. 
— Doctor Double Ale. — The Image of Hypocrisy. — John Bon and Mast 
Person. — The Conservative side. — Its Satires. — A Poor Help. — Growth of 
the Reformation under Edward VI. — A Ballad of Luther, the Pope, etc. — 
Little John Nobody. — General character of the Reformation Satire. 

I 

There was ample material for social satire during the reign 
of Henry VHI and of his son and successor, Edward VI. It 
was a period of social, political, and religious change, a period 
crowded with momentous events. 

The Reformation; the decay of the old nobility; political 
follies and crimes, such as the systematic debasement of the 
currency; the dissolution of the monasteries, casting eighty 
thousand people adrift without means of subsistence — all this 
and more furnished material for the social satirists, and it is 
not strange that the social satire of the period echoes with com- 
plaints and with calls for reform. 

The old Norman nobility were decaying, their castles fall- 
ing into neglect. The King's extravagance, which they were 
forced to emulate, was to them a source of ruin. This degra- 
dation of the old nobility was the very object at which King 
Henry aimed. He filled their places with new men — " up- 
starts " the old nobility called them. Many of the clergy, 
carried away by the commercial spirit of the time, became mer- 

168 



169 

chants, and used even the very holy places of the church, so 
it was claimed, for markets of barter and sale. It was also 
said that in London itself, aliens were outdoing English mer- 
chants at their own business, and French wares were out- 
selling English products. Upon the dissolution of the monas- 
teries, vast tracts of land passed into the hands of a new com- 
mercial class, the sheep-farmers, and rents enormously in- 
creased. The monks had, in the main, been easy landlords, but 
the new owners, bent only upon money-making, were avaricious 
and unfeeling. Small farms were united into large inclosures 
for sheep-raising ; whole villages and even churches were razed 
to the ground ; tenants were summarily evicted and turned 
adrift ; the country was overrun with thieves and beggars as 
never before. From the debasement of the currency, which began 
in the reign of Edward IV, it resulted that the shilling of 155 1 
contained less than one-seventh of the fine silver of the shilling 
of 1527. Between 1495 and 1533, wheat rose from four shill- 
ings to over eight shillings per quarter; but the increase in 
wages during the same period was far from being proportion- 
ate — the pay of an agricultural laborer rising only from two 
shillings to two shillings three-pence per week. All these con- 
ditions united to produce deep and widespread misery, which 
is mirrored in the satirical verse of the period. 

Such conditions as these are pictured in the ballad Nowa- 
days} Its thirty-five eight-line stanzas are strongly reminis- 
cent in their tone, form and subject-matter, of the poem on 
the evils of Edward II's reign.^ Its subject-matter is widely 
inclusive, for the writer revie^ the whole state of the country 
from the point of view of a moralist and a public sympathizer. 
While in several stanzas we find general complaints that may 
or may not spring from specific circumstances, yet there is 
after all very little of the " satirical commonplace," for Nowa- 
days derives its significance and vitality largely from its con- 
temporary references. The absence of any allusion to monastic 
disestablishment or to the intolerable taxation that marked 
the last years of Wolsey's regime, would seem to place the 

^Ballads from Manuscripts, ed. Furnivall, vol. i, p. 93. 
^ See supra, p. 64 f. 



170 

date of the poem somewhere about 1520. The church and the 
laity, the lords and the Commons, the city and the country, 
are alike arraigned with considerable effectiveness, and in an 
earnest, popular style. Here is the voice of the poor, but also 
the complaint of the moralist. The old charges against clerical 
corruption and the sale of benefices are reinforced by a criti- 
cism of the commercial spirit among the clergy : 

" Men say that priors & abbottes be 
Grate grosyers in this countre ; 
They vse bying & sellyng openlye; 

the church hath the name. 
Thei are nott content with ther possession, 
But gapyng ever for promotion, 
& thus withdrawyng mens Devotion, 

vnto the landes grete shame." 

Nowadays is not, on the one hand, the literary Satire of 
Skelton, popular in form as that is, nor, on the other hand, is 
it the mere popular political ballad. It seems rather a cross be- 
tween the two ; for, though somewhat self-conscious, it is lack- 
ing in literary form, and seems to spring from the people. It 
shows little personality, for it is both anonymous and without 
personal allusions, yet it illustrates the English tendency to 
pass in review public events, and, when necessary, to express 
freely and fearlessly an adverse opinion. 

The extravagant fashions of this period are attacked in The 
Manner of the World Nowadays, a ballad that may have been 
written by Skelton.^ While it embodies a mixture of charges, 
such as might apply to any age, it contains a number of specific 
references to its own time. It is reminiscent of Lydgate, as 
it inveighs with a certain amount of humor against pointed 
caps, pranked coats and sleeves, guarded hose, new-fashioned 
daggers, and other French importations dear to the courtier 
and gallant of the period. 

Something of this same material is embodied in Wynkyn de 
Worde's rather more elaborate and far more celebrated Trea- 
tise of this Gallant, written about 1520, in thirty-two rime royal 

'The Works of John Skelton, i, 148 f; Old Ballads, ed Collier, Percy 
Soc, Pub., vol. I, p. I. 



171 

stanzas."* In this mixture of moral and social satire, we find 
material that is at times general and again strictly contempo- 
rary. The writer begins with a lament on England's pres- 
ent condition, and describes the dress of the gallant of the 
period — " Warrocked hoode," '' parrocked pouche," dag- 
gers, " purpled garments," " rolled hodes, stuffed with flockes," 
doublets open at the breast, slashed gown and coats, tippets 
like a chain in which they go haltered like a horse to the 
stable, '* the new bulwarks that they wear at the knee." Women 
are rebuked for infidelity to their husbands, for dressing like 
men, and for giving themselves to wantonness; and prelates, 
lords, and merchants are bitterly arraigned. The people, how- 
ever, are pitied, for they are bare- footed, hungry, and miser- 
able: 

" So moche rychesse and araye and so moche nede 
So many bedes borne and so lytell deuocyon 
So moche fastynge for hungre and so lytell nede 
So moche paynted worshyp and so lytell reason 
I trowe no man hath sene in this regyon 
Our synne asketh vengeaunce I am in grete fere. 
In shorte tyme we shall wayle that euer it came here." 

The Treatise of this Gallant is interesting in its union of the 
medieval and the transitional and its very obvious imitation 
of Skelton's Speke Parrot. In the serious, even bitter tone; 
in the discussion of the seven deadly sins ; in the arraignment 
of various social classes, it is thoroughly medieval ; but in 
the somewhat satirical description of the gallant's dress, and the 
reference to the follies of the court, it is more characteristic 
of its own period. Still, as a whole, it is largely a survival 
of the old moral rebuke in which the satirist was moved to 
indignation, not laughter, and, being chiefly an imitation, it is 
not especially significant or interesting, except as giving variety 
to the social satire of its time. 

The Ruin of a Realm, also composed about 1 520, and written 
in rime royal stanzas, is preserved in manuscript only. It is 
characterized by very much the same tone as Wynkyn de 
Worde's lugubrious Satire.^ No great interest attaches to its 

* Ballads from Manuscripts, i, 445; Early Popular Poetry, 3, 149. 
^ Ballads from Manuscripts, I, 158. 



172 

academic tone and its general lament. It is a serious, even 
vituperative, attack in the medieval manner on the vices of the 
prelates. In its animadversions upon the degeneration of the 
old nobility and upon the evils of the new court life, it is far 
more interesting. Feudalism has passed away. 

The dissolution of the monasteries consummated in 1536 by 
King Henry through the agency of his great minister Thomas 
Cromwell was by no means acceptable to the whole of the 
English people. Though the monks had degenerated into mere 
land-owners and the friars into mere beggars ; and though 
monks and friars both were without religious enthusiasm, and 
the monasteries had outlived their usefulness, still neither 
monks, friars, nor monasteries were generally unpopular. In- 
deed, in the north, where the abbeys had long been the refuge 
of the poor and the dispensers of a generous charity, the dis- 
establishment was bitterly resented, as is witnessed by the 
famous " Pilgrimage of Grace" in 1536. This strange social 
uprising in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, which was at once 
both " aristocratic and popular, clerical and lay," sprang from 
a strange mixture of complex motives. The lords of the old 
nobility rose against the " upstart " Cromwell, who, from a 
time shortly after the fall of Wolsey, had, under the king, been 
the supreme power in the state, and was cordially hated by 
every class of people except the extreme Protestants. The peo- 
ple rose against the enclosures of land and the grasping avarice 
of the new land-owners, against heavy taxes, and widespread 
social wretchedness. Both clergy and people together protested 
against the dissolution of the monasteries. Finally, all classes, 
the lords, the clergy, and the commons, were up in arms against 
the religious changes which the king and his iconoclastic min- 
ister were forcing upon the nation. The " Pilgrimage of 
Grace," at first so threatening and formidable, was finally un- 
successful, and accomplished nothing for the alleviation of the 
conditions that gave it birth. These social evils were not to be 
remedied even in part until the time of Elizabeth. Disestab- 
lishment was to proceed apace until it ended in 1545 in the con- 
fiscation of the property of the guilds. The old nobility was to 
grow weaker and weaker. Religious changes were to proceed 



173 

until they resulted in the complete protestantism desired by 
Cranmer and Somerset. 

It was just at this period that An Exhortation to the Nobles 
and Commons of the North,^ in twenty-five six-line stanzas, 
summed up these conditions. One wonders whether it was 
written before or after the '* Pilgrimage of Grace " and what 
relation it might have sustained to that famous uprising. Its 
tone is fanatical, vehement, and wholly polemical. The sup- 
pression of the monasteries is the theme, and Cromwell as the 
author of the mischief is roundly abused. " It is these miser- 
able heretics under Cromwell their chief, who have caused all 
this trouble : 

This curseide cromwell by hys gret pollicie 
in this Realme haith causid gret exaction, 
then hyly promotyng that settes outte heresie ; 
by the aide of the chancellors, vsyng exortacyon. 
Agans them all for to fyght, I think yt conuenient, 
and noit for to seisse tyll ther lyves be spent." 

Yet the king, in whose hands Cromwell was but a servile instru- 
ment, was alone responsible for disestablishment. It is, how- 
ever, characteristic of this period of Tudor absolutism that the 
king's name is never mentioned ; first Wolsey and then Crom- 
well are held responsible for all the evils of Henry's reign. 

Ten years pass by before the voice of the people is again 
heard. Henry VIII is with his fathers, and Somerset is Lord 
Protector of the realm ; but the evils and abuses that had called 
forth so loud a protest in the former reign have become intol- 
erably aggravated. Enclosures and evictions have grown even 
more common ; the debasement of the currency has continued, 
with a proportionate rise of prices. At Norwich twenty thou- 
sand men have risen, calling for the removal of evil counsellors, 
prohibition of enclosures and redress for the poor. We should 
expect such conditions to be mirrored in some popular protest, 
and so they are. Vox Populi, Vox Dei, written about 1547, by 
some clumsy imitator of Skelton's style, and addressed to Som- 
erset, Lord Protector, is indeed the " voice of the people," 

^Ballads from Manuscripts, i, 301. 



174 

whether or not it be the ''voice of God."^ Through these eight 
hundred and fifteen Skeltonical Hues rings a strong enthusiasm, 
and a mighty sympathy for the poor. The satire is purely social, 
with a singular unity of theme and a form well suited to its 
subject-matter. Replete with allusions to contemporary 
affairs, the strong and vehement torrent of the verse hur- 
ries straight on without any digressions into didacticism or 
moralizing. The gist is the wrongs of the agricultural labor- 
ing classes. Free from any moral protest or satirical common- 
place, this strictly contemporary material is treated by some one 
who has an eye on the objects about which he is writing. In 
eleven sections of imequal length, the writer refers to the 
avarice of the great landowners (sheepmasters who had de- 
prived the poor of a livelihood), the debasement of the cur- 
rency and the misery entailed thereby, the rise in the price of 
meat, the forced vagabondage of the laboring man : 

" I mene the laboreng man, 
I mene the husbande man, 
I mene the plowghe man, 
I mene the handy-craft man, 
I mene the vy [tal] lyng man, 
and also the gud yoman 
that some tyme in this realme 
hade plente of key and creme, 
butter, egges, and chesse, 
honey, vax, and besse ; 
but now, a-lacke ! a-lacke ! 
al thes men gowe to wrake, 
that are the bodye and staye 
of youre grasis realme alwaye." 

Vox Populi, Vox Dei, a genuine popular appeal, purposeful 
though it be and permeated with a strange sort of power, is too 
devoid of humor to be satirical. At a time which produced 
practically no literature of any kind, and perhaps no verse that 
can be termed in any true sense satirical, the significance and 
value of the Vox Populi, Vox Dei, lies mainly in its direct, 
fearless, and forcible expression of the hereditary English inter- 
est in public affairs. 

' The Works of John Skelton, 2, 400; Ballads from Manuscripts, i, 124. 



175 

II 

In subject-matter, medieval verse-satire can show nothing 
more remarkable than its frequent attacks on Woman. These 
constitute a sort of school of satirical verse, dragging out an 
existence through centuries. They embody an immense 
amount of satirical commonplace, set forth in a spirit vituper- 
ative rather than critical. The attack is not confined to any 
one literature or period, but is met with at every turn, often 
in places the most incongruous. In the Latin poem Geburt 
Jesu, of the thirteenth century, reverence and eulogy of the 
Virgin Mother are succeeded by gross abuse of contemporary 
womanhood. From the twelfth century on, innumerable ex- 
amples occur in both verse and prose, Latin, French, and Eng- 
lish. In Goliardic verse we have the Golias de Conjuge non 
Ducenda,^ and many others. Anglo-French furnishes its 
full share: La Jeste des Dames,^ of the thirteenth century, 
in sixteen quatrains, is a lightly satirical attack chiefly on the 
vanity of women. Ragman Roll,^^ and the really satirical but 
indecent Song on Woman of the fifteenth century, perpetuate 
the tradition in English. In the early sixteenth century it 
culminates, and, as a formal genre, does not die until Eliza- 
bethan times, when satirists find something better to say. 

What was the origin of the Satire on Woman? Perhaps 
the Roman de la Rose, with its hundreds of lines of bitter 
taunts and witty gibes against women, had something to do 
with the later product. But long before Jean de Meung, the 
Goliards indulged in it, inspired, perhaps, by the theological 
doctrine of the Fall of Man through woman, and the teaching 
of the Church that, to the clergy. Woman was a delusion and 
a snare, to be shunned and, incidentally, to be vituperated. In 
the case of the Trouveres, very possibly this Satire on Woman 
resulted in an attempt to parody and counteract the extrava- 
gant love-poetry of the German Minnesangers.^^ Wright 
thinks it resulted from a corrupt state of society, as did the 

* See supra, p. 41. 

^ Reliquice Antiquce, i, 162-3. 

^^ See supra, p. 122. 

" Haessner, Die Goliardendichtung, passim. 



176 

terrific onslaughts of Juvenal. On the whole, however, eccle- 
siastical influence seems to have predominated, and the Church 
was probably the main source of this satirical genre. What- 
ever its origin, the attack became so frequent and so unspar- 
ing in the fifteenth century, that replies thereto seemed neces- 
sary ; and so we find the admirable Occleve in The Letter of 
Cupid taking up the cudgel and defending women against the 
inconstancy and deceit of men."^ These sixty-eight seven-line 
stanzas should have been sufficient; but none the less the 
women seem to have attacked Occleve as a defamer of the 
sex, and he found it necessary in his Dialogue — at least 
through the last eighteen stanzas of the eight hundred and 
twenty-six lines — to defend himself against the accusation. 

The Pain and Sorrow of Evil Marriage,^^ a translation of 
the Goliardic poem De Conjuge non Ducenda, in twenty-two 
rime royal stanzas, appeared early in the sixteenth century. 
It is a very general but bitter attack on Woman, a warning to 
youth, didactic in its tone and devoid of merit or of interest. 
Just as bitter and general, but much more gross, is The School- 
House of Women,^^ written about 1540.^* It is in one hun- 
dred and forty-seven stanzas of seven lines each, with four 
accents to the line. In this medley of anecdote, of illustrations 
drawn from Biblical and classical sources, and of direct ac- 
cusations, every imaginable charge is brought against the sex. 
It is, indeed, a summary of all satire of its type. 

This gross invective and direct abuse changes to a tone at 
times humorous and really satirical in The Proud Wives Pater 
Noster,^^ written in seventy-two eight-line stanzas. The 
Pater Noster bears little relation to contemporary life ; but 
dialogue and narrative, and freedom from didacticism and 

^^* Cf. Chaucer's Legend of Good Women. 

" Pub. Percy Soc, vol. I, ed. Collier ; Early Pop. Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, 
4, 73- 

^* Early Pop. Poetry, 4, 97; Select Pieces of Early Popular Poetry, ed. 
Utterson, vol. 2, p. 51. 

" Almost a century later, The School-House evoked from Edward More 
a reply entitled The Defence of Women, — a late example of the same 
genre to which belong Occleve's Letter of Cupid and Dialogue. 

^ Early Pop. Poetry, 4, 147; Select Pieces of Early Pop. Poetry, 2, 144. 



177 

invective, give it an interest superior to that attaching to other 
satire of the kind. It opens with a visit of a wife to church. 
She interlards her Pater Xoster with frequent expression of 
most worldly desires. The narrative passes into dialogue as 
the two wives exchange confidences regarding husbands, and 
advise together as how best to manage the unreasonable crea- 
tures. The first wife returns home to put the advice into 
practice. Failing to wheedle her husband into foolish expen- 
ditures, she steals his money and brings him to ruin. This 
form has something in common with Dunbar's T/w Two Mar- 
ried Women and the IVidozc, though here the satire is not so 
stinging nor the indecorous clement so preponderant. Chau- 
cer's Wife of Bath, herself no saint, would have despised 
such marital conduct. 1 

But this humorous and truly satirical tone fails to manifest 
itself in a treatise Shonnng and Declaring the Pride and Abuse 
of Women Nozcadays, written by a certain Charles Bansley.'* 
This is a sermon of direct rebuke in fifty-nine four-line stan- 
zas, coarse and vituperative in its tone, general in its subject- 
matter. The author is evidently a Protestant, for we are told 

** From Rome, from Rome, this carkered pryde, 
From Rome it came, doubtless." — 

Finally, inane and ineflfective as it is, this species — the Satire 
on Woman — is destined to long life, for it crops out here and 
there in the informal satire of the Elizabethans. Indeed, has 
it ever died away? 

Ill 

Among the numerous social evils of the times of Henry 
VIII the most conspicuous was that of vagabondage. This 
evil had been of slow growth. For centuries it had been in- 
creasing — ever since the introduction of sheep raising as a 
national industry had thrown large numbers of agricultural 
laborers out of employment. But never had it been so gen- 
eral or so threatening as now. New industrial conditions had 
arisen, and to these the lower orders had not accommodated 

^* Early Pop. Poetry, 4, 227 f. 



178 

themselves. The continued and extensive enclosures for 
sheep raising, which have been referred to, aggravated a con- 
dition which Parliament was unable to check by the most strin- 
gent laws. These laws not only restricted the landlord in his 
operations, but imposed severe punishment on beggars and 
vagabonds. Still the evil grew, and it continued until the eco- 
nomic balance was readjusted in a later reign. England was 
infested with gangs of mendicants and thieves, some really 
impotent to gain a living, some able-bodied and " sturdy," 
seeking honest employment, others professional beggars and 
cheats, who thus took advantage of the prevailing economic 
conditions to practice wholesale fraud. 

From such transient conditions of this era, sprang a pecu- 
liar form of satire. It first appeared in The Ship of Fools, 
flourished for a generation in a number of imitations of the 
greater work, and gradually died as its source failed with the 
disappearance of the excesses it essayed to attack. Sporadic 
satire on beggars and begging there had always been, but it 
had never developed into a distinct variety until these favor- 
able conditions gave it shape. In form the Satire on rogues 
and beggars is an elaboratiort of the old Satire on classes. 

Cocke Lorelle's Bote^'' is the best-known and perhaps the 
most interesting of all the nuWierous progeny of The Ship of 
Fools. This highly humorous and really satirical burlesque 
was printed by Wynkyn de Worde some time early in the reign 
of Henry VIII. Its plan, that of a ship of rogues, is of 
course imitated from the famous and popular work of Bar- 
clay. Of the poem, only four hundred and fourteen lines 
survive, written in a kind of tumbling verse, rhyming 
a a b a c b, usually of three .and four accents, but permitting 
a large variety. 

Cock Lorell, a notorious vagabond, has a boat for the recep- 
tion of all classes of rogues in England. These come to- 
gether, seeking for passage in the boat, and are described, the 
first few with some degree of minuteness. The later ones, 
who come by scores, are merely named. All, of course, are 
rogues, not only from the class of professional vagabonds, but 

" Percy Soc. Pub., vol. 6, ed. Rimbault. 



179 

also from the trading classes, each of which is represented. — 
thus we infer that, in the writer's opinion, every class is full 
of rogues. The abrupt beginning introduces a woman of the 
lower class, who is followed by a cobbler, a shoemaker, a tan- 
ner, a butcher, and so on, and finally by a pardoner. The 
appearance of this last personage introduces an elaborate piece 
of burlesque, as the pardoner reads his roll and doscribrs his 
wares. One is of course reminded of Chaucer's inimitable 
treatment of this same theme. ^* 

Here follows a realistic bit of description, disgusting per- 
haps,; but significant, which fills over one-fourth the extant 
part of the poem. Best of all the motley throng is the butcher, 
" gored in reed blode," with his two bull-dogs and liis greasy 
hose. Crowded at last with representatives of every imagin- 
able class of rogues, the ship sails away. The various occupa- 
tions of the passengers are described. Some merely " why- 
teled after the wynde." Merry and sportful was the life on 
the ship as she sailed fair England around, calling at every 
" vyllage, towne, cyte, and borrowe.*' As the writer wends 
homeward, he meets with a company of 

" — ennytes, monkes and freres, 
Chanons, chartores, and inholders ; 
And many whyte nonncs with whytc vayles." 

They seek passage on the boat, but are too late. The writer 
advises them to wait another year, until Cock Lorell comes 
around again. 

In this social Satire is a strange mingling of realistic and 
of burlesque description. In realistic description and in char- 
acter study, it is a product of the Renaissance, connecting it- 
self in these qualities with other pieces of contemporary satire. 
Its atmosphere is thoroughly English ; and, for verisimilitude, 
the Pardoner, in his burlesque description, alludes to various 
London localities, — St. Giles, St. Katherine's, London Bridge. 
In its Rabelaisian humor and broad burlesque and its absolute 
freedom from didacticism, Cocke Lorell s Bote is utterly dif- 

"To be followed by the dramatic treatment in the work of Lyndsay 
and of Heywood, q. v. 



180 

fcrent from The Ship of Fools. In that it is partly a Satire 
on classes, it connects itself with the past. Yet it is not the 
product of literary traditions, but of the free, broad, spontane- 
ous impulses of its period. In realism and in power of 
characterization it perhaps owes something to Barclay ; but 
these qualities, appearinj^^ sporadically in satire since the days 
of Langland, are now in the air. With Cocke LorelVs Bote 
we begin that satire of low life which is hereafter to be peren- 
nial in English literature. 

Contemporary with Cocke Lorell was The Hye Way to the 
Spyttel Hous,^^ ascribed to a certain Robert Copland. This 
extraordinary production lacks the strong burlesque of Cocke 
Lorell, but is in some respects even more remarkable. Our 
interest in it arises from its immediate relation to contempor- 
ary conditions, its author's clear insight, and his powers of 
minute description. It is in no sense poetical ; nor is it, 
strictly speaking, a Satire. The Hye Way is a versified eco- 
nomic tract, written with a purpose — an unsparing exposure 
of the frauds perpetrated by the mendicant classes. Its debt 
to the " Fool satire " is obvious, though its scope is narrower 
than that of The Ship of Fools: its class of fools is that of 
those beggars who are brought to poverty through their own 
folly.-® In its humorous and minute realism, it exemplifies 
the growing disposition to study and portray low life which 
appeared first in the work of Langland and intermittently ever 
after. Now, however, this interest in the lower orders and 
their habits of life is vastly fed by contemporary conditions — 
an interest in this case not merely literary but scientific ; for 
our author not only is awake to the life around him, but in- 
quires into its causes. The Hye Way to the Spyttel Hous is 
almost twelve hundred lines in length ; written mainly in the 
pentameter couplet, with an introduction in rime royal. The 
form is narrative and descriptive ; the style, simple, direct, 
realistic, without trace of literary tradition. 

The author, taking refuge from a winter storm, stops at a 

"Early Popular Poetry, 4, 17 f.; Select Pieces of Early Popular Poetry, 
2, I f. 

* See Herford, pp. 359-62. 



161 

certain hospital. With the porter he holds a lengthy conver- 
sation, which turns on social conditions and reviews the whole 
range of mendicancy in a scries of graphic pictures. These 
descriptions are not only realistic and humorous, but contem- 
porary. There is in them, however, something universal and 
permanent as well. One of the most striking of these scenes, 
selected from a large number almost equally vivid, is that of 
the porter's description of his experiences at St. Paul's. lie 
tells of dishonest mendicants who simulate indigence, but are 
in reality more prosperous than the very people who contrib- 
ute to their support. 

Another Satire of this class, The Tzccnty-fiz'c Orders of 
Fools, is so deeply indebted to Barclay as to be a mere epitome 
— though a lamentably colorless and feeble one — of The Ship 
of Fools. Not only its characters but sometimes its very ex- 
pressions are drawn from the earlier and greater work. Still 
another example of this satire on fools and rogues. Awdeley's 
Quatern of Knaves, connects with Barclay through Coeke 
Lorell. It is a class Satire, a genuine study of rogues, and 
shows a gain in power of realistic character portrayal.^* 

Altogether, this satire on certain ])hases of low life is 
closely related, in its realism and its humor, as well as in its 
didactic purpose, to similar subject-matter found in the more 
humorous and realistic Moralities of about this same period. ^- 

IV 
The " Satire of the Reformation " is even more character- 
istic of this period of change than is the *' Satire of Rogues." 
Religious satire in a broad sense had existed, as we have seen, 
since the days of Walter Map. It is the expression of a salient 
English characteristic, which has shown itself in the some- 
times humorous, sometimes bitter gibes of the old (ioliardic 
school ; in the almost inarticulate wails of would-be reformers ; 
in the strong arraignments of Langland ; in the polemic pro- 
tests of the Lollards. 

^ For a description of The T'ucttly-firc Orders of Fools and of the 
Quatern of Knaves the present writer is entirely indebted to Professor 
Herford's Studies in the Literary Relations of England and Germany in 
the Sixteenth Century. 

^ Cf. infra, ch. VII, passim. 



182 

The Lollard satire represented far more than the traditional 
Satire on religious matters. It was a revolutionary attack on 
doctrines as well as on morals ; a call for change of creed, as 
well as for a reformed morality. But these protests, powerful, 
searching, bitter as they were, failed in their object : Lollardry, 
with all its revolutionary doctrines, fell before the Lancastrian 
persecution in the earlier fifteenth century; and for a season 
the revolutionary voices were hushed. But only for a season. 
For the Lutheran satire of a hundred years later was the logical 
continuation of the Lollard cry for doctrinal reform. Under 
the impulse of Lutheranism from without, the embers of Lol- 
lardry were blown into flame. The religious satire produced 
by the radical puritans of this later time, which we call the 
Satire of the Reformation, added the more radical element to 
a renewal of the old plaints and of the old calls for moral and 
doctrinal reform. 

Such was the satire of the religious revolutionists, the radi- 
cals. It had its antitype in the satire of the extreme conserva- 
tives. The voice that spoke in the time of Wycliffe against 
Lollardry, the voice that rejected reform and defended the old 
order, was still heard, opposed utterly both to Lutheranism and 
to the gentler, more gradual reform proposed by the men of the 
New Learning. 

Besides both of these partisan varieties, there was a long line 
of religious reformers who, since the days of Walter Map, had 
spoken in English satire — had spoken tin the Goliardic verses, 
in Piers Plowman, in the work of Lydgate and of Gower. 
This line of moderates was represented now by Skelton and the 
great scholars of the English Renaissance, who voiced the 
medium between Lutheranism and extreme conservatism. 
Save Skelton, they spoke mainly in prose ; and it was of course 
in prose — the usual vehicle of religious disputation — that the 
religious spirit of the time largely found expression. 

But from 1526, when Tyndale's translation of the New Tes- 
tament was introduced into England, on to the close of Henry 
VIII's reign, the Reformation was an increasingly powerful 
and vigorous movement, with both opposition and support un- 
sparing and outspoken. As a natural result, we find in this 



183 

period a considerable amount of verse-satire both for and 
against the movement. As might be expected, such satire 
possesses very Httle Hterary merit. It is vituperative rather 
than critical ; it deals in invective rather than in true satire ; it 
is interesting only for the light it casts upon the religious tem- 
per of the time. As has been said, the Satire of the Reforma- 
tion, strictly so-called, is distinguished from the previous religi- 
ous satire — except that of the Lollards — in that it deals distinctly 
with the doctrines of the Lutheran Reformation. The satire 
of the reformatory party, not content with merely ridiculing or 
abusing clerical immorality and ecclesiastical corruption, at- 
tacks the very doctrines and polity of the Church — the Mass 
and all that it implied, shrines, images, pilgrimages, celibacy 
of the clergy, and all else against which the reformers made a 
stand. Although preluded in tone and much of its subject- 
matter by the Lollard satire, it is quite unconscious of literary 
tradition, and whatever heritage it has from the past is cer- 
tainly not one of literary form. 

Only two verse-Satires of this period rise into emineVice. 
One is The Satire of the Three Estates by Sir David Lyndsay, 
the Scotchman; the other, RedeMe and Be Xott IWrothe, by 
two Franciscan friars, Roy and Barlow. Both Satires repre- 
sent the radical or even revolutionary religious party, though 
Lyndsay, as we shall see later, stands in a class apart. Be- 
fore we discuss Rede Me and Be Xott IVrothe, it is necessary 
to review briefly a series of events that led up to the poem and 
largely gave it motive, and without a knowledge of which it is 
hardly explicable. 

The New Learning, which in England took a religious turn, 
had for one of its effects the translation of the Bible. It was 
to be expected that all attempts to bring the Bible home to the 
people should by scholars and reformers like More be looked 
upon as revolutionary and savoring of the Lutheranism that was 
just then invading England. And such was the case. William 
Tyndale, himself a scholar and reformer, met with opposition 
not only from the conservative clergy, hut from scholars of the 
New Learning as well. He was forced to flee from English 
persecution, and to finish in Germany his translation of the New 



184 

Testament. In 1526 six thousand copies were surreptitiously 
introduced into England. All these were eagerly bought up by 
a people long hungry for religious truth. The translation was 
unauthorized ; conservatives, led by the prelates, cried out 
against it. It savored of Lutheranism ; and thus even the more 
liberal placed upon it their ban. At Oxford, it had found a 
generous welcome, and certain heretical young scholars, oppo- 
nents of pilgrimages and image-worship, held secret meetings to 
discuss the new teaching and read the new translation. All this 
was discovered by the conservative ecclesiastics, keen-scented 
for heresy. Consequently, at the instigation chiefly of Cuth- 
bert Tunstal, the Bishop of London, with Wolsey's consent, six 
of these young Oxford scholars in penitential dress, carrying 
lighted faggots, were forced to join in a procession through the 
streets of London. At St. Paul's Cross they stopped, and were 
led thrice around a blazing pile of books, into which they cast 
their faggots. This blazing pile was composed of copies of 
Tyndale's translation of the New Testament, bought up or 
confiscated by the conservatives.^' After the bonfire, a sermon 
against heresy was preached by Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. 
But the people did not take kindly to the spectacular exhibition : 
they called it a " burning of the word of God." This peni- 
tential procession made a tremendous stir in the religious world. 
It was only the small beginning of prolonged and bitter persecu- 
tion, but it echoed in verse for many a day. 

Skelton, or, as we would prefer to believe, some imitator of 
Skelton, dedicates to Cardinal Wolsey his piece of invective 
against these same six young heretics. It is in the Skeltonical 
meter, which was, unfortunately, quite as well adapted to such 
impotent vituperation as it was to the sledgehammer strokes of 
Skelton's best work. The Replycacion^* extended through 
some four hundred lines of what professes to be argument, but 
is in truth mere vulgar abuse, without sense and without humor. 
Of its tone and style a few lines will suffice as illustration : 

** So thorough was this confiscation that but tzuo copies of Tyndale's 
translation have survived to the present day. 
** The Works of John Skelton, i, 206. 



185 

" I saye, ye braynlesse beestes, 
Why iangle you suche iestes, 
In your diuynite 
Of Luther's affynite, 
To the people of lay fee, 
Raylyng in your rages 
To worshyppe none ymages, 
Nor do pylgrymagcs? 
I saye, ye deuyllysshe pages. 
Full of such dottages, 
Count ye your selfe good clerkes 
And snapper in suche werkes ? " 

Certain references to Luther, Wycliffe, and " Lollardy 
lernyng " show the writer to be a conservative who sees in 
new translations of the Bible only Lutheranism and revolution 
— " sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion." 

If the translation of the Bible had produced only a Rcply- 
cacion, however, it would here demand little attention. But 
out of it and subsequent similar events grew the Rede Me and 
be Nott Wrothe,^^ greatest of English verse Satires of the 
Reformation period. Whether or not Tyndale was a Lutheran, 
the readers of his translation became largely identified with the 
party of religious revolution. Certainly there can be no doubt 
of the religious tenets of the authors of Rede Me and be S'ott 
W rot he. William Roy and Jerome Barlow were two English 
friars, Franciscan observants, and " Protestants," who had 
taken refuge in Strassburg from tlie persecution against Luth- 
eranism already begun in England. Germany was being swept 
by the Reformation. Strassburg was the storm-centre. The 
Swiss cantons had formally abolished the Mass and had taken 
their stand unequivocally in favor of Lutheranism. But in 
Strassburg, a free city, the Mass, though morally dead, had not 
yet been buried by a formal abolition. This was to come a 
few months later. Just at this critical juncture, these two Pro- 
testant friars indited Rede Me and be Xott lyrotlic. True, it 
was both written and printed abroad : but it was by English- 
men, for Englishmen, and about Englisli affairs. In England 

^ Arber's English Reprints, vol. II, pp. 19-123. 



186 

reports of its publication went about in the autumn of 1528, 
and Wolsey, *' the protagonist in this religious drama," or- 
dered his agent Rynck to buy all the purchasable copies in Ger- 
many. Thus the edition was virtually destroyed, and the in- 
fluence of the powerful Satire almost brought to naught. Had 
it been freely circulated in England, it might have worked a 
revolution, or at least have had results comparable to those 
effected in Scotland by its northern counterpart, The Satire of 
the Three Estates; for it conies right from within the fold, 
and is thus all the more unsparing and thoroughgoing in its 
denunciations and exposures.^** 

In form and in tone Rede Me and be Nott Wrothe presents 
nothing radically new. Its invective, sarcasm, ridicule, were 
shared by much other satire of the time ; and the form, that of 
dialogue, was widely popular. Moreover, its subject-matter, 
wholly religious, is, so far as regards its attack on the 
ecclesiastical orders, that of religious satire for over three cen- 
turies preceding it. Wolsey was a constant target for contem- 
porary English satire. Even what seem the distinctly reform- 
atory — the Protestant — elements are not all new. Pilgrimages 
and shrines had been assailed by Langland. The celibacy of 
the clergy had long been a subject for controversy. Pardons 
and indulgences had for centuries been the objects of inces- 
sant attack. But the spoliation of the abbeys and the aboli- 
tion of the Mass itself are, of course, of the Reformation alone ; 
and, in the aggregation of all these various charges, the attack 
on the policy of the Church and its hierarchy, the substitution 
of the New Testament for the authority of the Church's pro- 
paganda, the call, not merely for reform in moral standards, but 
for radical changes in polity and doctrine, — all these mark this 
Satire as distinctly of the Protestant Reformation, — thus sepa- 
rating it fundamentally from all that has preceded it. In 
England it is a pioneer, and by far the greatest of its kind. 

" Manuel's Krankhcit der Messe, a poetic dialogue of great humor and 
power, had begun the Mass satire. From this source Roy and Barlow 
probably borrowed their idea ; but, judging from the general inferiority 
of their Satire, the two frars had not read Manuel's dialogue. The mere 
idea, however, might well have reached them orally, since the country 
was full of it. See Herford, pp. 43-44. 



187 

In form, this Satire is simply a dialogue between two 
serving-men of a priest. W'atkyn and Jeffraye recognize the 
fact that the Mass is actually dead and that consequently their 
master must soon be without employment — his occupation 
gone. What shall they, then, do for a living? This is a deli- 
cate question. While considering it, they fall inevitably into 
religious disputation, after the custom of their time. If the 
Mass is really dead, where shall it be buried, — in France, in 
Rome, or in England? Finally the shrine of St. Thomas at 
Canterbury is decided upon as the most fitting place of inter- 
ment. Then, who shall perform the funeral ceremony, — 
Cardinal, Bishops, Secular Clergy, Monks, or Friars? As each 
class is considered, an opportunity is taken to expose its enor- 
mities ; and these form the staple of the theme. 

There is nothing dramatic in the dialogue. Watkyn is the 
simpler fellow : he relies on God's Word only, and to it he 
appeals. But he is acquainted with Protestant affairs on the 
Continent ; and the first part of the dialogue deals largely 
with happenings in Germany. Jeffraye, shrewd, bitter, re- 
plete with common-sense, is fresh from England. He is thor- 
oughly familiar with English ecclesiastical affairs and knows 
the craft and subtlety of the various religious orders. Through- 
out, he is the bolder of the two, and the principal speaker. 

The work is dedicated with superb insolence to the " Car- 
dinal of York." It opens with a piece of burlesque — a mock- 
lament for the Mass, supposedly spoken by a priest who 
bewails the death of that venerable dignitary and his own 
consequent loss of occupation. This consists of thirty- four 
seven-line stanzas a h a h h c c ; the first six lines of five ac- 
cents ; the last, of four. This mock-lament is followed by the 
first part of the dialogue. In this the two Protestant friends 
discuss generally the doctrines of the church — celibacy of the 
clergy, the Mass, miracles, pardons, pilgrimages, shrines, the 
Pope, religious affairs in England. Both Watkyn and 
Jeflfraye have heard much of miracles, but neither has ever 
seen one. Priests, they say, reverence these fables a thousand 
times more than they do the Gospel ! But severe as is this 
indictment, their crowning piece of invective is reserved for 



188 

the Pope. After finishing with the Pope, and assaiHnp^ the 
cehbacy of the clergy, JefFraye strongly advocates the sup- 
pression of the monasteries. This is especially interesting, 
since the poem was written some years before monastic dis- 
establishment went to such extremes under Cromwell. Jef- 
fraye dwells upon the economic aspect of monastic land en- 
croachments, thus making the only departure from a purely 
religious tone in the whole dialogue. '* These monks turn lands 
into pasture, and let a dozen farms under one lease ; hence one 
or two rich franklins occupy the rightful livings of a dozen 
men." Thus is thrown upon the land-owning clergy the en- 
tire burden of a wretched social phase for which they were 
but partially responsible. 

With such advanced Lutheranism, naturally go abundant 
references to contemporary affairs. Chief among such refer- 
ences are the allusions to the reception of Tyndale's New 
Testament in England, and the action of the Bishop of Lon- 
don. The burning of the Testament at Saint Paul's Cross 
is dwelt upon at length. Eight stanzas in r{}ne royal, filled 
with bitter invective, are addressed to Wolsey as the insti- 
gator of the sacrilege. With these contemporary references 
there are many personalities — and for these the present Satire 
is especially distinguished. Wolsey is of course the chief 
target for abuse. He is '* the butcher," ** the butcherly 
sloutche " ; and, at the same time, the ruler of England, 
" greater than King or Queen." Every possible charge is 
alleged against his character, and not one virtue is allowed 
him. He is represented even as a traitor to his country. At 
last, after the Cardinal's character has been minutely analyzed, 
he is chosen as the fittest celebrant of the obsequies of the 
dead Mass. 

Rut Roy and Barlow were not content with such large prey 
as the mighty Wolsey. Both on the Continent and in Eng- 
land, they singled out for that thorough and cordial mud- 
flinging in which they were such adepts, other conservatives, 
or even reformers, if over-cautious. Eather ^Tathias, John 
Faber, Emfcr, Dr. Eck, Murner, Erasmus, Thomas Winter 
(Wolsey's illegitimate son), Standish, and Cochlaeus, are all 



ls«j 

jjcncrously rcnicnibercd. Of the last named, the chief Con- 
tinental spy of the I'.iijj^lish ])relaleN. W'atkyn |L,Mves a very un- 
flattering descrii)tion ; and to thi> JetTraye replies, 

** Yi he be as th<>u say>t he is 
I warant he shall not mis 
Of a benefice and that shortly. 
For I ensure the oure Cardinall 
With wother bissh<)j)s in i^enerall 
Love soche a felowe cntierly." 

After these bitter personalities and C(^ntemj)orary allusions 
follows a lament over the decline of spirituality amonir eccle- 
siastics, written in fifteen stanzas of rime royal. This lament 
forms an interlude. It mijj^ht have been written by Lydi^atc, 
so remote, so p^eneral, so dull is it. and so little has it in com- 
mon with the dialop^ue proper. This old-fashioned and lut^u- 
brious lament is followed by the second i)art of the dialoc^ue, 
devoted to just as time-honored an assault on the clerc;-y. In 
the manner sanctioned by every relij^ious satirist since Walter 
Map, the two I'ranciscan brothers en<^a.i^e in a si)ecific expos- 
ure of the misdeeds of the Kni^lish ecclesiastics of the estab- 
lished Church. JefFraye speaks, first payinjj^ his respects to 
the bishops : 

" As for preachync^e they take no care 
They wolde se a course at an hare 
Ratlier then to make a sermon. 
To folowe the chace of wylde dere 
Passynf^e the tynie with ioly chere 
Amon^^e the\iii all is common. 
To playe at the cardes and dyce 
Some of theym are nothynj^e nyce 
l^>oth at hasard and momchaunce. 
They dryncke in i^aye p)l(len booles 
The bloudde of povre simple soules 
]*erisshync^e for lacke of sustenaunce. 
Their honc^ery cures they never teache 
Xor will soffre none wother to preache 
But soche as can lye and Hatter." — 

The secular clergy are not spared ; neither are the mendi- 



190 

cant orders, nor the monasteries and the monks. Roy's own 
order, that of the Observants, is condemned utterly and at 
great length. The cry against plurality of benefices, especially 
strident in England at this time, is not wanting ; but perhaps 
the only distinctly new charge against the clergy in this long 
and severe arraignment is that of betrayal of confessions. 
Hence, viewed merely as an attack on the clergy, the Satire, 
though lively and vigorous enough with its mingling of humor 
and invective, connects itself with its own perennial class, 
which had flourished through the three hundred years pre- 
ceding the Lutheran reformation. 

The tone of Rede Me and Be Nott Wrothe is marked by 
bitter invective, thoroughly English and at times as harsh as 
that of Skelton, but far superior to that of most religious sa- 
tire. Yet there is much irony — the very antithesis of invective, 
tremendous sarcasm, and some telling burlesque. The satire 
carries a strange conviction of truth-telling, though the tone 
towards Wolsey has a ring of personal resentment 

Through all its thirty-three hundred lines of dialogue. Rede 
Me and Be Nott Wrotlie employs a consistent verse-scheme, 
rhyming a a b c c b, with four accents to the line, regularly, 
but sometimes three accents. The verse is light, and 
suits the material. Its unity of theme and its consistent struc- 
ture render the poem readable. Violent as it is, this polemic 
is not dull; and with its sufficient humor and thoroughly 
destructive tone, it very well merits the designation of Satire. 
It is the result of a spiritual revolution, and was well calcu- 
lated to further that revolution, called forth as it was by a 
crying need and answering a popular appeal. Almost need- 
less to say, in form, in matter, and in spirit. Rede Me and Be 
Nott Wrothe bears no trace of classical influence.-^ The allu- 
sions in the poem are so far unclassical that they relate wholly 
to contemporary religious affairs, after the manner of the 
polemic Satire. The Christian reaction speaks in every line, 
but nothing of the pagan Renaissance. What is old, is of the 
Middle Ages ; what is new, is of the Protestant Reformation. 

" See supra, p. 1 5 f. 



191 

Appearing about the same time with the Rcdc me and Be 
Nott Wrothe, and quite possibly by the same authors, is a 
Protestant tract that goes under the name of ^ Proper Dia- 
logue Between a Gentleman and a Husbandman.-^ This som- 
ber and severe production seems to have been written for the 
purpose of giving to Protestantism the dignity of age by con- 
necting it with Lollardry. An address to the reader in ten 
rime royal stanzas, very similar in every respect to the inter- 
lude in Rede me and Be Nott Wrothe, introduces us to the 
dialogue. This is opened by the gentleman. In several stan- 
zas, written in rime royal, he relates his hard fortune at the 
hands of the clergy, and tells us how estates that are right- 
fully his have been given away by his ancestors in return for 
masses promised by the priests. The husbandman replies in 
the meter of Rede Me and Be Xott Wrothe; and this verse 
is retained throughout the remainder of the dialogue. If the 
gentleman has suffered the loss of his patrimony, the husband- 
man has been ruined by extortionate rents — a strange accusa- 
tion, as the clergy were notoriously easy landlords. Com- 
plaints against the avarice of the clergy continue tlirouLjhout 
the piece, developing mainly the theme of Roy and Barlow's 
Satire, but emphasizing the economic aspect. We are told of 
the hatred felt by the clergy for the \ew Testament in Eng- 
lish, of the reasons for this hatred, and of the burning of the 
New Testament in London. Clerical immorality is touched 
upon, and the historical references carry us back to Sir John 
Oldcastle and the persecution of the Lollards under Henry V. 
The significance of the Proper Dialogue lies largely in the 
attempt to give historical continuity to the reformatory move- 
ment, but also in the insistence upon the economic aspect of 
monastic proprietorship. This latter is a note strangely at 
variance with the almost universal cry against the enclosures 
and evictions that multiplied so largely after the dissolution 
of the monasteries. 

Doctor Double-Ale,-^ a highly humorous and at times vitu- 
perative Satire, written in five hundred and twenty lines of 

" Arber's English Reprints, 2, 125. 
" Early Popular Poetry, 3, 303 f. 



192 

Skeltonical verse, is distinctly of the Reformation, although it 
does not attack the doctrines of the church. Written prob- 
ably between 1530 and 1545, this is virtually the ecclesiastical 
Satire of the Goliardic school, though more humorous and far 
more vital in its characterization. The writer, with exceeding 
unction and zest, limits himself to describing the character 
and habits of a priest who is a confirmed toper and who totally 
neglects his parochial duties. He is a great favorite with the 
ale-wives, whose chief customer he is, and he usually makes 
the round of all the ale-houses. When he sticks to one, there 
is trouble: 

" For sometime he wyll go 
To one, and to no mo. 
Then wyll the hole route 
Upon that one cry out, 
And say she doth them wronge, 
To kepe him all daye longe 
Ffrom commyng them amonge." 

But Doctor Double-Ale satirizes only one order of the 
clergy. In the Image of Hypocrisy, written about 1533, we 
have a purely religious satire, attacking the whole ecclesias- 
tical hierarchy. This ballad exists only in manuscript. Its 
two thousand five hundred and seventy-six Skeltonical lines 
furnish such a terrific arraignment of every clerical order and 
hurl such floods of vitriol upon the offending clergy that it 
becomes highly significant, and characteristic of its period. It 
must have been written by some extreme Protestant, and, 
though on the opposite side, corresponds in its tone to the 
Skeltonical Replycacion. Argument is here replaced by abuse 
and rank invective, which now and again loses itself in " sound 
and fury, signifying nothing." Such Billingsgate, imitating 
Skelton's worst features, is only too characteristic of this new 
period of religious strife. But The Image of Hypocrisy, 
while far too diffuse, is sufficiently entertaining.'® 

The poem is divided into four parts. Part I contains a gen- 
eral denunciation of the clergy. Their treatment of so-called 
heretics is dwelt upon: 

'* Ballads from Manuscripts, i, 181 ; The Works of John Skelton. z, 413. 



193 

" A fagott for his backe, 
or, Take him to the Racke, 
And drowne hymne in a sacke, 
Or burne hymne on (a) stake, 
lo, thus they vndertake 
The trothe false to make." 

Part II is directed against the Bishops, the Pope, and the 
Cardinals. The Pope is the Antichrist of Rome ; the Sire of 
Sin ; a Crocodile ; the Devil's priest from whom all evils spring. 
Part III is against the preachers. " Now we have a knight 
(Sir Thomas More) with his apology for the prelacy. He 
helps to bring simple innocent men to death [here follows 
another reference to the persecution at Paul's Cross] : 

" And so the innocent, 
for feare to be brent, 
Must suffer checke and checke, 
his faccott on his necke. 
Not for his life to quecke, 
But stande vpp, like a bosse, 
In sight at paules crosse." 

Part IV attacks the many orders of the popish clergy, monks, 
and friars. " You are beasts of Belial, yet you would have 
us call you ' fathers angelical ' " : 

" In Councells myschevous, 

In musters monstrous. 

In skulkings insidicious, 
■ Vnchast and lecherous, 

In excess outragious, — " 

The Image of Hypocrisy in its form, as has been said, shows 
the baleful influence of Skelton. It is by far the most elab- 
orate religious Satire of its time. 

Some ten years later, toward the close of Henry VIII's 
reign, the Reformation tract known as John Bon and Mast 
Person,^'^ a dialogue in one hundred and sixty-five lines, fur- 
nishes a fine contribution to the Reformatory satire of this 
period. The abundant humor of this argumentative dialogue 
furnishes a delightful contrast to the tone of most religious 
satire. John Bon, the ploughman, involves the parson in a 

" Early Popular Poetry, 4, 3 f . 



194 

discussion about the Mass, in which, with apparent artless- 
ness, he draws the priest into all kinds of absurdities. 

But the Satire of the Reformation was not one-sided, nor 
was invective the weapon of the Protestants alone. We find 
preserved in Dr. Furnivall's collection of manuscript ballads a 
poem representing the conservative side of religious contro- 
versy. Through forty-six six-line stanzas in the form of a 
popular ballad, the writer inveighs against the heresy which 
sprang from the devil and is infecting many of God's people.^^ 
" Luther is responsible for it all — that German dragon, who 
plots against all true Christianity, despises the priesthood, and 
strives to infect Englishmen with such damnable doctrines. 
These heretics contend that holy oil is no better than butter 
for anointing, that the clergy may marry, and stand for other 
abominable heresies that lead to damnation." Without humor 
and without literary merit as it is, the significance of this un- 
mitigated invective lies in its popular tone and use of strictly 
contemporary material. 

Skelton's influence again appears a few years later, towards 
the close of Henry's reign, in A Poor Help, some three hundred 
and sixty lines of invective against the Reformation.^^ The 
title of the poem is only too indicative of its nature ; for while 
it reviews the various arguments of the reformers and attempts 
reply, its theme is without unity and its tone without humor. 
Had The Image of Hypocrisy ever been printed, one might 
think this a reply to that Protestant tract. " Will none in all 
this land take in hand these fellows, like the sand in number, 
who meddle with the gospel, and tell false tales against our holy 
prelacy, and the dignity of the holy church, saying it is but 
popistry and hypocrisy?" 

The Reformation set in motion, however unwittingly, by 
Henry VHI, grew and expanded in the reign of Edward VI. 
What had been at first but a break with Rome, without any 
significant change of doctrine or polity, became rampant Luth- 
eranism a few years later under the fostering care of Arch- 
bishop Cranmer and the Duke of Somerset. From the litera- 

^^ Ballads from Manuscripts, i, 275. 
*' Early Popular Poetry, 3, 249 f . 



195 

ture of the time, it is very apparent that these violent religions 
changes were unwelcome to a vast majority of the people. The 
Mass, which had been abolished, the monasteries, which had 
been supressed, the Catholic doctrines, which had been swept 
away by Lutheranism, all were still held dear by the conserva- 
tives, who constituted a very respectable minority of the people. 
However dominant the Protestant party might be at Court, 
it was by no means so influential among the people at large. 
Religious conditions were far from settled ; the Reformers still 
found it necessary to contend vigorously against a powerful and 
active opposition. It is not strange that under these conditions 
the satire both for and against the Reformation should continue 
through the reign of Edward VI. It was merely a continua- 
tion of what preceded it, and presented nothing new in either 
subject-matter or in literary form. 

Sometime in this period A Ballad of Luther, the Pope, a Car- 
dinal and a Husbandman, in which each character speaks three 
eight-line stanzas, utters a plea for the reformers.^* The Car- 
dinal and the Pope, are, of course, satirized, while Luther and 
the Husbandman get the best of the argument. The Husband- 
man praises God, who has given a fall to those extortionate 
wolves, the Roman clergy. Luther addresses the Pope as Anti- 
christ, who has usurped political power and juggled with God's 
word, has flattered the prince but threatened the peasant. The 
Pope does not excuse his deeds, but claims he is above both law 
and scripture : 

" As for scripture, I am above it ; 
Am not I God's hye vicare? 
Shulde I be bounde to followe it, 
As the carpenter his ruler?" 

Protestantism became the fashion at the court of Edward VI. 
Religious discussion was a favorite way of passing the 
time. Concerning matters of faith, courtiers spoke with as 
much assurance as expert theologians. Edward's corrupt court 
was thronged with members of the nobility, — " upstarts," who 
moved in the passing show and professed the Protestant faith 
merely because it was fashionable. Under a surface of religi- 

^ Percy's Reliques (1847), p. 117 f. 



196 

ous zeal lay an abyss of corruption. How superficial and in- 
sincere was the religious tone of the court, the reaction a few 
years later under Queen Mary only too plainly showed. 

It is with such conditions as these that Little John Nobody^^ 
deals, in eight eight-line stanzas of alliteration and rhyme, 
written probably towards the end of the reign of Edward VI. 
The author passes along and finds one making a song about the 
condition of the Faith. This man says his name is John 
Nobody, and he dare not speak out. " Gay gallants pretend 
to discuss the Gospel as sage as Solomon. It is meet, to be 
sure, that all should have the Gospel in mind ; but is it meet 
that all should discuss it and still live in lust?" 

" For bribery was never so great, since born was our Lord, 
And whoredom was never les hated, sith Christ harrowed hel. 
And poor men are so sore punished commonly through the 

world, 
That it would grieve any one, that good is, to hear tel. 
For al the homilies and good books, yet their hearts be so 

quel. 
That if a man do amisse, with mischiefe they wil him 

wreake : 
The fashion of these new fellows it is so vile and fell ; 
But that I little John Nobody dare not speake." 

Not without humor and rather effective in form, Little John 
Nobody is interesting as a side-light cast on the religious con- 
dition of the times by some cynical contemporary. 

Of such quality is the verse satire of the English Reforma- 
tion. It was an age of revolution, not only in religion and 
politics, but in literature as well. Old forms were disregarded 
and thrown aside. Religious satire of any period shows con- 
tempt for literary form, and it rarely possesses literary merit. 
It is didactic and reformatory. It abuses rather than ridicules, 
prefers invective to humor, and would rather knock a foe down 
with a cudgel than pierce him with a rapier. All these char- 
acteristics appear in the satire of the period from 1520 to 1550. 
Such work can have but little value as a contribution to the 
Satire, and is interesting only in the light it casts upon the re- 
ligious temper of its period, and its exhibition of the English 
tendency to speak freely and vigorously upon religious matters. 

"Ibid., p. 119. 



CHAPTER VII 
Sir David Lyndsay and the Satiric Play 

Sir David Lyndsay. — His life. — Lyndsay the man. — His poetry. — His 
satire. — Lyndsay as a satirist of the Reformation. — The Reformation in 
Scotland. — Lyndsay's The Dream. — The Complaint. — The Testament of the 
Papingo. — His minor Satires. — A Satire of the Three Estates. — Its subject- 
matter. — Its tone. — Its first part. — Its abstractions. — The interlude. — 
Realism and Burlesque in The Three Estates. — The second part. — John the 
Common Weal. — The didactic element in The Three Estates. — Its effect. — 
Lyndsay's contribution to the Satire. — Dramatic satire in England. — The 
Interludes and Moralities. — Confusion of terms. — Religious and social 
satire. — Satire of low life. — Satire in the Miracle Plays. — Skelton's 
Magnyfycence. — Heywood's Interludes. — Their burlesque elements. — Bale. 
— His Moralities. — His Kyng Johan. — Other Moralities and Interludes. — 
Nature. — Respublica. — New Custom. — Incidental satire in other plays. — 
Lost polemic plays. — Elizabethan dialogues. — Value and significance of this 
dramatic satire. 

I 

The work of Sir David Lyndsay, Scotchman and Reformer, 
while little influencing subsequent satire in English, is still 
extremely significant. Above all others writing in English, 
Lyndsay is generally accepted as the distinctive satirist of the 
Reformation. His work shows a combination of the qualities 
of Gower, Dunbar, and Skelton : of Gower, in moral earnest- 
ness ; of Dunbar, in burlesque humor ; and of Skelton, in power 
of invective. While no great attention can be paid here to 
the history of satire north of the Border, yet Lyndsay, in 
his own period, is so great a figure that the same reasons which 
led to some mention of Dunbar must make us pause for con- 
sideration of this vigorous and versatile satirist.^ 

The life of Sir David Lyndsay covered sixty-five years, 
from 1490 to 1555, a stormy and momentous epoch in the 

^ The Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay, ed. Laing, 2 vols., Edin- 
burgh, 1871. 

197 



198 

history of Scotland — the reigns of James IV and James V 
and the regency during the minority of Mary Stuart. Lynd- 
say's Hfe was as eventful and busy as the times in which he 
lived. Poet as he was, poet-laureate of the Scottish court, he 
was yet — as Lyon King of Arms, head of the college of 
heralds, play-fellow of James V, ambassador to various king- 
doms, — even more a man of affairs than a man of letters. 
Lyndsay lived through the disaster of Flodden, French in- 
trigues during the reign of James V, the vacillating regency 
of the Duke of Albany, the feud of the Douglasses against 
the Hamiltons, and the murder of Cardinal Beaton. He wit- 
nessed the continual border wars with England, saw Scot- 
land rent with domestic discord, welcomed the introduction 
of the New Testament, and deplored the martyrdom of Pat- 
rick Hamilton. He went as ambassador to Charles V in 1531, 
and again in 1535; as ambassador to France in 1536. He 
participated in the marriage ceremonies of James V, first to 
Magdalene of France, then to Mary of Guise; represented his 
native town of Cupar as a member of Parliament; became the 
friend of John Knox, and encouraged him to preach, though 
himself always a Catholic; and, finally, died in 1555, behold- 
ing the dawn of a better day for Scotland. 

Lyndsay as man, sterling, strong, courageous, lover of Scot- 
land, hater of immorality, hypocrisy, and oppression, friend 
of the common people and born reformer, is far more interest- 
ing than Lyndsay as poet; but the qualities of the man him- 
self and the times in which he lived interest us here only so far 
as they are mirrored in Lyndsay's satirical verse. Given the 
man and the times, it was inevitable that Lyndsay's poetry 
should be intensely practical and show little imaginative qual- 
ity. And such it is, being almost wholly didactic and satirical. 
With a copious vocabulary and an almost fatal fluency in 
rhyme, but devoid of the high imaginative qualities that mark 
the true poet, he is inspired by a reformatory purpose. And in 
this respect Lyndsay stands in strong contrast to Dunbar, both 
as man and as satirist. Dunbar's satirical verse, as we have 
seen, was born of no such motive, for it was but the com- 
ment of a man of the world upon the life around him, with- 



199 

out the idea of making that world better in any degree. Lynd- 
say, without Dunbar's poetical genius, is far more earnest and 
sincere. He apparently writes with but one motive : to de- 
stroy the wrong and upbuild the right. In his earnestness 
and practicality, he reminds us of the English Gower; but he 
is unlike Gower in that a copious humor illumines every- 
thing he writes. 

Lyndsay wrote for the common people, and he earned a pop- 
ularity perhaps accorded to no other Scottish poet save Burns. 
His style and vocabulary are suited to the popular taste. 
The coarseness that colors so much of his verse made a popular 
appeal. Whatever may be the literary qualities of his work, 
there resulted from this popular appeal a tremendous effective- 
ness. This work shows no literary inheritance, not a shadow 
of classicism — thoroughly native to the man and to the soil, 
it springs spontaneously from public needs to rectify public 
abuses. Lyndsay was the voice of all Scotland as no Scottish 
poet had ever been before. 

The range of his satirical material is remarkably wide and 
varied. As he looks about him over his native land, threatened 
by foreign foes, rent by domestic discord, oppressed by a selfish 
nobility, with corruption permeating every estate of the realm, 
Church and State in the grasp of unscrupulous prelates and 
ministers, the reformatory spirit within him is stirred to utter- 
ance. It speaks sometimes in direct satire, sometimes in in- 
vective, sometimes in burlesque, arraigning and rebuking a 
thousand abuses in church, society, and state. Lindsay's di- 
rect satire is keen, his invective scorching, his burlesque ex- 
ceedingly humorous. While almost wholly of historical in- 
terest, his satirical and didactic poems become invaluable as 
a criticism of his times. 

We have said that Lyndsay is known as the satirist of the 
Scottish Reformation. If this means that he attacked the 
fundamental creed and polity of the church, the epithet is 
largely misapplied. It is true he assailed every imaginable 
form of clerical abuse, arraigned entire the Roman hierarchy, 
ridiculed pilgrimages, penances, and image worship. But Skel- 
ton had done the same; and this was the common material 



200 

of a host of Lyndsay's satirical predecessors. In Lyndsay's 
poetry there is no attack on the creed or the Mass, no advocacy 
of the aboHtion of popery such as marked the distinctive Satire 
of the Reformation, as seen for instance in Rede me and be 
Nott Wrothe. In the Satire of the Three Estates, however, 
the polity of the church is called into question; and there is 
reason to believe that had Lyndsay lived ten years longer his 
satire would have been as distinctly of the Protestant Refor- 
mation as any written in English. Even as it is, his satiri- 
cal verse contains so many allusions to the ecclesiastical af- 
fairs of this epoch that it cannot be well understood or ap- 
preciated without reference to the Scottish Reformation. 

The Reformation in Scotland was mainly due to a con- 
dition of the church even more scandalous than that exist- 
ing at the same time in England. Those evils that had af- 
fected the church for generations were growing intolerable. 
The sale of benefices, corrupt morals of the clergy, plural 
livings, undue interference of churchmen in State affairs, had 
generated an anti-clerical spirit that in Lyndsay's time was 
beginning to find determined expression. The Reformation, 
then, arose from an attempt not so much to secure doctrinal 
reform or to keep out Papal influence, as to purify the church 
from within. The clergy, presumptuous and arrogant, re- 
sented popular criticism, and persecuted their accusers by fire. 
Such persecution resulted in still more widespread and bitter 
accusations and calls for reform. Finally, opposition to French 
influence gave the Scottish Reformation a political bearing 
that probably did more than anything else to speed the cause 
of the reformers. 

There can be no doubt that Lyndsay, at least as much as 
any man in Scotland, was in sympathy with this reformatory 
spirit. His verse is one great cry for reform, echoing with 
the nation's social, political, and religious strife. His literary 
work begins with The Dreme in 1528 and ends with The 
Monarchie in 1553; though his strictly satirical work closes 
with the Satire of the Three Estates, about 1540. Most of 
his poems are medleys of satire and didacticism. The Dreme, 
written in eleven hundred and thirty- four lines, in Chaucerian 



201 

stanzas, and addressed as an exhortation to the young King 
James V, comprises a vision of Hell, Heaven, and Scotland. 
In the good old medieval fashion, the poet dreams, and is con- 
ducted by Dame Remembrance into Hell, where he sees Popes, 
Emperors, and Kings, conquerors who are despoilers of other 
people's property, cardinals and archbishops in their prelatical 
robes, abbots, and " false, flattering friars." After the voyage 
through hell and the empyrean, the poet looks upon Scotland, 
and inquires the cause of her poverty and distress. He is 
told by his guide that these arise from the unpatriotic and 
selfish conduct of the great nobles. John the Common Weal, 
who is about to leave his country, explains his reasons for de- 
parture and his own ragged habit, by further reflections upon 
the state of the realm. His comments are very direct and 
severe. The spiritual estate, eaten with vice, disdains him; 
the nobility are careful only of their own ends. In this al- 
legorical form of narrative, though Lyndsay indulges in no 
personalities, his political satire on the general condition of 
Scotland is very fearless and direct. Never were abstractions 
more effective. The figure of John the Common Weal gives 
dignity to the poem, which forms a worthy prelude to the 
Satire of the Three Estates. 

Political satire and social satire are combined in The Com- 
playnt of Schir David Lyndesay to the Kingis Grace (1529). 
This is a didactic poem, written chiefly in tetrameter verse, 
reflecting largely upon the vices of the clergy, and advising 
the king as to the religious, political, and social disorders of 
the country. Severe, without humor, but with a mighty 
strength of attack, it is very much alive, as witness this one 
stanza on the corrupt practices of the temporal and spiritual 
lords : 

" Thay lordis tuke no more regaird, 
But quho mycht purches best rewaird : 
Sum to thair friendis gat benefyceis. 
And uther sum gat Byschopreis. 
For every lord, as he thocht best, 
Brocht in ane bird to fyll the nest; 
To be ane wacheman to his marrow, 
Thay gan to draw at the cat harrow. 



202 

The proudest Prelatis of the Kirk 
Was faine to hyde thame in the myrk, 
That tyme, so failyeit wes thair sycht. 
Sen syne thay may nocht thole the lycht 
Of Christis trew Gospell to be sene, 
So blyndit is thair corporall ene 
With wardly lustis sensuall." — 

Following The Complaynt to the King, religious and social 
satire are combined in The Testament and Complaynt of our 
Soverane Lordis Papyngo, a partly didactic and partly satirical 
poem, in Chaucerian stanza, on court follies and clerical irregu- 
larities. The Testament, an old literary form, had time and 
again on the Continent been used for satirical purposes. In 
English, though " Testaments " galore had appeared through the 
preceding two centuries, Lyndsay seems the first to employ the 
form as a vehicle for satire. The parrot, or " papingo," ap- 
peared frequently as a court bird in the European literature 
of the Renaissance. Skelton in his Speke Parrot makes the 
wise bird the mouth-piece of his satire. Now, for the first 
time, a poet uses the form of the Testament together with the 
parrot as the vehicle of his satire, and we have the Testament 
of the Papyngo. We are reminded of Skelton's Speke Parrot, 
for the present poem is very much the same kind of medley. 

After her first epistle — a purely didactic epistle — to the king 
— to whom she leaves her " trew unfeinyeit hart," the Papingo 
indites a second to the courtiers, a grave admonition against 
the perils of the court and a homily on the reverse of fortune 
and the fall of pride, as illustrated in the unhappy deaths of 
the last four Scottish kings, the career of Wolsey, and the 
death of Angus. The religious satire begins with the last 
part of the poem and runs through seventy-six stanzas in the 
form of an allegory. The dying parrot wishes confessors, 
and the Magpie, who is a regular canon and prior, the Raven, 
a black monk, and the Kite, a friar, come to her side. The 
parrot is suspicious of them all : she has seen the Kite steal 
a chicken. But she has to accept them as religious counsellors 
and executors, since she can do no better. Before dying, she 
sets forth the reasons why she holds the clergy " so abomin- 



203 

able," and recounts the growth of the corruption of the priest- 
hood and the sensuaHty and avarice of the church. The 
preaching of the begging friars alone preserves faith among 
the clergy. After this long and severe rebuke, the parrot 
makes her will and testament, sending unto her " Soverane 
Kyng " her heart. To the owl she leaves her green dress ; 
to the pelican, her beak ; her voice to the cuckoo, and her elo- 
quence to the goose. Her bones she orders to be burnt with 
those of the phoenix ; the rest of her she leaves to the officiating 
clergy, whom she now appoints her executors. She dies, and 
after this event her friends of the clergy fight fiercely over her 
remains. 

Though characteristically without personalities, the Pa- 
pyngo forms one of Lyndsay's strongest attacks on clerical 
corruption. The form and conception are trite enough, but 
the added vitality and strength mark a new era in the Satire. 

Genuinely satirical, with abundant humor, is Ane Supplicatioun 
in Contemptioun of Syde Taillis, written in 1536. This is in 
the form of an epistle to the king ; in length, one hundred and 
sixty- four lines of rough tetrameter verse — " The cause the 
matter bene so vile, it may nocht have an ornate style." The 
Supplication is a rather coarse but really humorous attack on 
fashions in dress, a light but genuine little piece of social satire. 

We have again in The Complaynt of Bagsche the Kingis 
auld Hound, a court Satire against the vices of the courtiers ; 
in Kitteis Confessioun, a frank Satire on the confessional ; in 
Ane Descriptioun of Pedder Coffeis, an exposure of the tricks 
of the peddler of that time. Finally, in The Monarchic 
(1554), an elaborate poem in 6333 lines, we find, among much 
else, an advocacy of the vernacular for poetical, religious, and 
legal purposes ; and an attack on pilgrimages and the worship 
of images, on corruption at Rome, on rack-rents of the lords 
and barons, on the injustice of both civil and ecclesiastical 
courts, and on the extravagant dress of women. 

But for our present purpose, all of Lyndsay's previous work 
forms merely the introduction to his Satire of the Three 
Estates,"^ written at some uncertain date, but produced before 

^ The full title is Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis in com- 
mendatioun of Vertew and vituperatioun of Vyce. 



204 

king and court at Linlithgow in 1540. It is a very long 
Morality, written in Scottish vernacular verse, the only speci- 
men of its kind from north of the Tweed. The Satire is not 
only Lyndsay's most elaborate but in every respect his most 
significant work, uniting in itself every phase of material and 
tone that characterizes his minor productions. 

The range of its subject-matter is well nigh universal. The 
social aspect of this subject-matter is highly significant: it is 
the woes of the people. Pauper describes in homely language 
his unjust treatment by laird and vicar and his present miser- 
able lot; while John the Common Weal, a dominating figure, 
reviews all the religious, political, and social abuses of Scot- 
land. Again, the political phase of the subject-matter shows 
us two of the ** Three Estates " selfish and ambitious, bound 
by their vices, the lords thinking only of oppressing the poor, 
and the prelates thinking only of high living. Furthermore, 
from the religious point of view, Lyndsay wishes to change 
somewhat the polity of the church as well as to reform its 
morals. He unsparingly attacks bishops, cardinals, and friars 
along the old lines, but with added vigor and earnestness, and 
especially inveighs against plural livings and absentee clergy\ 
In addition to all this, the Satire of the Three Estates has a 
moral aspect in its treatment of the vicious condition of all 
classes of society from king to peasant; while the abstract 
vices are satirized by personification in such figures as those 
of Flattery, Sensuality, and Deceit. One reads in every line 
of the Satire the reformatory purpose that inspired it and the 
deep moral earnestness that spoke through it. 

The Satire of the Three Estates as a whole admirably illus- 
trates the transition from the medieval religious play to the 
Elizabethan drama. In its vast number of separate characters 
and variety of topics there is much that is commonplace, as 
well as unique and powerful. With its genuine satire, invec- 
tive, didacticism, and burlesque, it forms a strange medley — a 
" cross between the old morality, the interlude of Heyward, 
the modern play, and systematic satire." Though primarily 
constructive and thoroughly reformatory in its purpose, the 
Satire has abundant humor, and its often conventional and 



205 

commonplace material is yet rendered unique by Lyudsay's 
masterful treatment. " Its satirical commonplace " declares 
itself — the corruption of the clergy was no new theme for 
satire, — but its local and contemporary elements, such as the 
wars on the Border, the rapacity of the nobility, are new and 
are native to the soil. All topics are treated effectively, 
because treated with an eye on the object, not generally, 
but specifically. Medieval in literary form, showing no 
classical influence, the Satire is still distinctly of the Renais- 
sance in realism and close observation of life. The figures 
of Pauper and John the Common Weal embody a strength 
of characterization that makes Lyndsay akin to Langland 
and Skelton. 

The first part of the Satire of the Three Estates, like the old 
morality, introduces such conventional figures as Wantonness, 
Sensuality, Falsehood, Deceit, Good Counsel, Dame Verity, 
and Flattery; but even here we find incidental satire, when 
Wantonness addresses Rex Humanitas and hits fiercely at the 
immorality of the clergy.^ Then, too. Flattery clothes him- 
self as a friar. The friars, he says, are free at every feast ; 
and God has given them such grace that Bishops put them in 
their places to preach throughout the diocese, 

" And thocht the corne war never sa skant, 
The gudewyfis will not let Freiris want." 

But, as an almost entirely new note in the morality,* just 
here at the beginning is introduced the satire of the Reforma- 
tion. The vices warn Humanity against Dame Verity, because 
she bears in her hand that heretical and proscribed book, 
Tyndale's New Testament, which had recently crossed the 
water into Scotland, caused the martyrdom of young Patrick 
Hamilton, and was soon to overthrow the Established Church. 
Flattery sees Verity : 

* Works, 2, 121. 

* Not entirely new, apparently ; Professor A. H. Thorndike of Columbia 
University calls my attention to Collier's account of a Morality in Latin 
and French, acted before Henry VIII and Wolsey by the Boys of St. 
Paul's school in 1528. The Morality introduced Luther and his wife, and 
ridiculed the Reformation. The play is no longer extant. 



206 

" Quhat buik is that, harlot, into thy hand ? 
Out, walloway ! this is the New Test'ment ; 
In EngHsch toung, and printit in England : 
Herisie, herisie ! fire, fire ! incontinent." 

Again and again, through this part of the play, Lyndsay re- 
verts to his favorite theme, the gross immorality of every 
order of the clergy. The satire is dramatic, indirect, tinged 
with irony and a rather bitter humor. Sensuality, when ex- 
pelled by Divine Correction from the court of King Humanitas, 
announces her intention of proceeding to Rome, where she is 
sure to find hospitality among the princes of the church : 

" My Lord, I mak yow supplicatioun, 
Gif me licence, to pas againe to Rome ; 
Amang the princes of that natioun, 
I lat yow wit, my fresche beautie will blume, 

War I amang bischops, and cardinals, 

I wald get gould, silver, and precious clais : 

Na earthlie joy, but my presence, availis." 

Chastity, too, banished from the court, seeks refuge among 
the clergy, but meets with a cold reception. The lady prioress, 
whom she first approaches, scornfully bids her begone. She 
passes on to the lords of the spirituality, then to the Abbot and 
the Parson, all of whom order her ofif on pain of punishment. 
These figures of the Abbot, the Parson, and the Spiritual 
Lords, form an addition to the conventional figures of the old 
Morality, and connect the Satire of the Three Estates with 
that newer dramatic form, the Interlude. 

In the interlude which binds together the first and second 
parts of the play, this religious satire passes into social, in the 
figures of Diligence, the Pauper, and the Cardinal. Pauper 
is a typical figure, that of the Scottish peasant, and his tale 
of woe is that of the common people of Scotland. In his talk 
with Diligence, Pauper tells how he had supported his old 
parents with one horse and three cows. His parents died and 
then his trouble began, for the laird took the horse for a fine, 
the vicar took the best cow when the father died, and another 
on the death of the mother ; the wife died for sorrow, and 



207 

thereupon the vicar took the third cow. Now Pauper with his 
bairns has to beg for a Hving. 

Pauper's sombre note is changed for one of ludicrous bur- 
lesque in the speech of the Pardoner, who is made to satirize 
himself as a social, rather than as a religious, personage. 
Lyndsay's Pardoner is a blood brother to Heywood's^ and 
Chaucer's.* He too speaks at great length, advertising his 
wares, and making permanent contribution to the universal 
satire on public imposters. He cordially commits to the Devil 
the wicked New Testament, those that translated it and those 
that read it, Martin Luther, Bullinger, and Melancthon, and 
all their crew. His motley assortment of relics includes the 
horn of a criminal cow, and a cord that hanged a malefactor. 
So ends the interlude. 

In the second part of the play we have the Morality again. 
The Three Estates — the spiritual lords, the temporal lords, and 
the burgesses — from whom the Satire takes its name, figure 
here as bound by vice and given over to every manner of cor- 
ruption. Strangely in contrast with these abstractions is the 
intense realism of the figures and speeches of Pauper and John 
the Common Weal. This satire is realistic enough and per- 
meated with abundant humor, as when Pauper complains of the 
injustice and delays of the Consistory courts. For his mare, 
drowned by a neighbor, he seeks redress from the Consistory : 

** They gave me first ane thing, thay call Citendiim, 
Within aucht dayis, I gat bot Lyhellandum, 
Within ane moneth, I gat ad Opponendum, 
In half ane yeir, I gat Interloquenduni, 
And syne, I gat, how call ye it? ad Replicandiim: 
Bot, I could never ane word yit understand him; 
And than, thay gart me cast out many plackis. 
And gart me pay for f our-and-twentie actis : 
Bot, or thay came half gait to Concludendum, 
The Feind ane plack was left for to defend him : 
Thus, thay postponit me twa yeir, with thair traine, 

Bot I got never my gude gray meir againe." 

" See infra, p. 213. 
* See supra, p. loi. 



208 

John the Common Weal represents the well-being of Scot- 
land. When asked by Temporality to name his enemies, he in- 
veighs against strong beggars, fiddlers, pipers, pardoners, and 
especially complains of feuds among the lords. The friars, 
too, come in for wholesale condemnation. But this is not all : 
severe judgment on the poor, while the rich escape through 
bribery ; faults in both consistory and secular courts ; the 
tributes of rack-rent and heriot, which fall so heavily on the 
poor cotter — all these furnish material for reprehension in the 
mouth of John the Common Weal : 

" Grandmerces, then, I sail nocht spair. 
First, to compleine on the Vickair : 
The pure Cottar, lykand to die. 
Haifand young infants, twa, or thrie; 
And hes twa ky, but ony ma. 
The Vickar must haif ane of thay, 
With the gray frugge, that covers the bed, 
Howbeit, the wyfe be purelie cled ; 
And gif the wyfe die on the morne, 
Thocht all the bairns sould be forlorne. 
The uther kow, he cleiks away. 
With the pure cot of raploch gray." — 

So far the material of the Satire, while often didactic, has 
been largely destructive in its criticism. All the abuses in 
every estate of the realm have been catalogued, and rebuked 
in direct satire, abused in invective, or ridiculed in burlesque. 
But now the reformatory and constructive element begins to 
preponderate, and the purpose that gave birth to the Satire of 
the Three Estates becomes apparent. The satirist has re- 
hearsed the evils that permeate the realm, and finally, in the 
person of John the Common Weal, proposes a remedy. Par- 
liament must pass a reform bill, which will take cognizance 
of the abuses in the Three Estates, that is, in the spiritual, the 
political, and the social worlds. All temporal lands are to be 
" set in few " unto virtuous men that labor with their hands. 
Lords shall make answer to the crown for the thieves on their 
estates who oppress the poor. Law courts are to be provided 
for the northern counties ; nunneries are to be abolished ; tem- 



209 

poral cases are to be removed from the jurisdiction of ecclesias- 
tical courts — 

" Let Temporall men seik Judges temporall, 
And spirituall men to spiritualities' 

Benefices shall be given only to " men of good erudition, 
above suspicion of vice, and qualified right prudently to preach, 
or to teach in famous schools." Because ignorant priests have 
brought the Church into reproach, no Bishop shall henceforth 
allow any except educated men to teach. No prelate shall pur- 
chase a benefice from Prince or Pope, nor any priest serve two 
benefices, nor any bishop two bishoprics. That they may the 
better care for souls, every bishop shall remain in his diocese, 
and every parson in his parish. No money shall from this day 
forth be sent to Rome, for that our substance is thus consumed 
for bills and processes. As priests for the most part lack the 
gift of chastity, we will grant them license to marry and live all 
their lives in chaste and lawful wedlock. 

Such is the Satire of the Three Estates, rich in invective, 
burlesque, and didacticism ; in elements of the satirical and of 
the reformatory ; in an immense range of material, and a wide 
variety of tone. Medley as it is, frequently anything but 
satirical, it still remains in its entirety a great Satire and a 
genuine contribution to the literature of its kind. 

It is interesting to know that, partly owing to the fact that 
the times were ripe for Lyndsay's satire, partly owing to the 
vitality and force of its presentation of abuses, the Satire of 
the Three Estates, together with Lyndsay's other satirical verse, 
became a tremendous motive power in contemporary Scotland. 
Sir William Eure tells us that after the representation at Lin- 
lithgow, " The king did call upon the Bishop of Glasgow, the 
Chancellor Dunbar, and the other bishops, exorting them to re- 
form their manner and fashion of living." James, indeed, 
seems to have encouraged Lyndsay's attacks on the clergy. 
Probably to this friendship of the king, Lyndsay owed his 
immunity from persecution on the part of the church. His 
onslaught against clerical morals was far more determined and 



210 

vehement than any that had brought, or was to bring, to the 
stake other critics unprotected by the royal favor. 

This, however, was only one reason for Lyndsay's immu- 
nity. The Satire had its comic side, and served as a source 
of amusement to the very classes whom it reprehended. Long 
ago in France Rutebeuf had, through similar comic effects, 
secured a similar immunity ;^ and Lyndsay, as did Rabelais, 
probably adopted the broad and indecent as an expedient to 
secure his own personal safety as well as to insure a popular 
hearing.^ 

Lyndsay's genuine and permanent contribution to satire lies 
rather in the tone than in the form of his work. His form 
was one that was already decadent ; it was medieval and out- 
worn, and could not well have any influence on the develop- 
ment of the formal Satire. But Lyndsay's wide range of 
material and variety of tone render his satirical work typical 
of almost all preceding satire in English. Still more than this, 
his style, realistic, vital and popular, and his spirit, aggressive 
and fearless, mark, as does the work of Skelton, a new era 
in satirical writing. In this respect Lyndsay's satire is, indeed, 
not of the Middle Ages, but of the Reformation. 

II 

But, while The Satire of the Three Estates is by far the 
finest as well as the most elaborate specimen of the early satiric 
play in English, that genre was not the property of Scotland 
alone. South of the Border the English Moralities and Inter- 
ludes, produced between 1500 and 1560, were attempting what 
Lyndsay attempted — a survey and criticism of the religious, 
social, and even, to a less degree, the political conditions of 
their time. Their attempts were sporadic, confused, often 
almost chaotic, but nevertheless significant, and worth consid- 
eration as dramatic satire. 

It is well known that any treatment of the Moralities and 
Interludes of this period is rendered difficult by several facts. 
The drama itself was in a chaotic condition : various forms 

' Lenient, p. 52 f. 

' I have seen this suggestion somewhere, but cannot find the reference. 



211 

existed side by side, often melted into one another, and fre- 
quently became indistinguishable. The Miracle Plays con- 
tinued to be presented long after the Elizabethan play had taken 
formal shape in tragedy, comedy, and history-play. The terms 
" Morality " and ** Interlude " seemed to have been used inter- 
changeably ; and, from the mere title, one never knows what to 
expect from a pre-Elizabethan play. The Interlude of Youth is 
a mere Morality ; the Interlude Respublica is a religious 
polemic ; the Morality Albion Knight is a political polemic ; the 
Interlude King Darius is a pseudo-history play. Thus the 
confusion seems to increase with the investigation. 

This confusion is one not merely of title, but also of methods. 
Very few plays of this period are clearly defined in scope and 
purpose. Nothing is more common than to find burlesque and 
didactic moralizing, the ideal and the real, inextricably mingled 
in the same play. 

Its apparent lack of progress, of improvement in form and 
style, is another characteristic that marks the drama in England 
from the beginnings of the Renaissance to the rise of the " reg- 
ular drama." The older criticism that developed the Miracle 
play, the Morality, the Interlude, and the history-play, in beau- 
tiful order, each type from the one preceding, is abundantly 
refuted by the most cursory reading of the plays themselves. 

But it is here our purpose merely to call attention to the 
satirical element in this anomalous drama. Broadly speaking, 
the satire found in the Moralities and Interludes is of two 
kinds — religious and social. The social satire is of a clearly 
pronounced type. That picturing of low life which came into 
English satire as far back as The Vision of Piers Plowman, 
which was continued by Skelton in his Elynour Riimmynge, and 
which was exemplified so largely in the satire on Fools and on 
Rogues, is vastly elaborated in the later Moralities. This satire 
on low life grew more realistic and graphic as the power of 
characterization increased in the drama. The didactic element 
in the later Moralities is often so overshadowed by it that the 
dramatist seems to have forgotten his original didactic intent. 
The scenes from low life are presented simply for their own 
sake, with all their vulgar realism^ — so low has the latei 
Morality fallen from its original and high estate. 



212 

Together with this comic portrayal of low life, often mingled 
with it, one may find here and there in the plays of all types 
a religious satire which is mainly the direct outgrowth of the 
Reformation. Some of these plays, notably Bale's Kyng Johan 
and Respuhlica, are professed religious polemics ; in many 
others, such as Lusty Juvenilis and two or three of the Inter- 
ludes of Heywood, religious satire is informal and incidental. 

But dramatic satire in England has left its traces even in 
the Miracle Plays. What Collier terms " the earliest specimen 
of dramatic satire in the language " occurs in the twenty-sixth 
pageant of the Coventry plays, where Satan describes himself 
as a gallant of the time and has his fling at contemporary dress 
and manners. Religious satire crops out in the Twenty-eighth 
Towneley ('' Juditium "), when the three devils read over their 
lists of the wicked, describing every kind of sinner, and the 
devil " Tutivillus " refers to himself as a '' master Lollar." 
Such traces, however, are so rare as to render them prac- 
tically negligible. It was not until realism, characterization, 
observation and criticism of actual life, came into the drama, 
that satire began to play in it an appreciable part. 

Amid a host of anonymous playwrights of this our present 
period three known writers stand out conspicuously: Skelton, 
Heywood, and Bale. 

Skelton's one extant play, the Morality Magnyfycence,^ is a 
cross between the old Morality with its severe abstractions and 
the new type with its growing realism. It is so far from 
being primarily satirical, that its satirical content is propor- 
tionally slight and of a very general nature — glimpses of char- 
acterization, as in Folly ; general allusions to the low life of 
London with concomitant vulgarity of speech; and the speeches 
of Counterfet Countenaunce, such as, 

" Counterfet prechynge, and beleue the contrary ; 
Counterfet conscyence, peuysshe pope holy; 
Counterfet sadnesse, with delynge full madly; 
Counterfet holynes is called ypocrysy." — 

Courtly Abusyon is really the lying, false courtier, and might 

' Works, I, 225-310. 



213 

well have figured in The Bouge of Courte. As he speaks to 
Magnyfycence, he utters the most telling satire of the play: 

" What sholde ye do elles ? are not you a lorde ? 
Let your lust and your lykynge stand for a lawe." 

One wonders whether Magnyfycence himself, a vague, shadowy 
figure, relying on his own power and wealth and falling so dis- 
astrously, does not perhaps stand for the whole of the New 
Nobility. But whatever satire Magnyfycence contains is, be- 
yond these specific passages, very difficult to determine. 

A more striking figure in the drama than Skelton is John 
Heywood, though perhaps the purely satirical element in his 
humorous Interludes has been exaggerated. Of Heywood's six 
dramatic pieces, three are in no wise satirical ; but the three 
about to be named, though, in all likelihood, written primarily 
to amuse, contain more or less intentional satire. 

A Mery Play between John the Husband, Tyb the Wife, and 
Sir John the Priest,^^ is a dramatized fabliau in that it holds 
up to ridicule the credulous husband, the unfaithful wife, and 
the wily ecclesiastic. The Pardoner and the Friar^^ is a bur- 
lesque dialogue in which the Pardoner's elaborate speech is 
of a kind with those found in Chaucer, Lyndsay, and Cock 
Lorell. Both Pardoner and Friar are rank imposters. Here 
the humorous element far outweighs the purely satirical, 
though the burlesque on ecclesiastical types is the old satire 
which began at least with the Goliards.^^ The Pardoner again 
figures in that most amusing of Hey wood's Interludes, The 
Four P's}^ Pardoner, Palmer, Pedler, and Pothecary, here 
indulge in satire both direct and indirect, as each makes him- 
self ridiculous and in turn holds up to ridicule his opponent 
in the absurd contest that forms the action of the piece. 

Wit, humorous situations, and glimpses of characterization 
render these three Interludes worthy of the honorable place 

^^ Quellen des weltlichen Dramas in England vor Shakespeare, ed. A. 
Brandl. 

^^ Dramatic Writings of John Heyzvood, ed. Farmer. 

^ See supra, p. 40 f. 

" Dramatic Writings, ed. Farmer. 



214 

they hold in the history of the EngHsh drama ; but it is diffi- 
cult to determine their exact satirical content. They are 
humorous burlesques, written primarily to amuse a courtly 
audience. In their subject-matter there is nothing new. Hey- 
wood was himself a Catholic ; and, if his Interludes be of 
satirical intent primarily, they are probably quite unrelated to 
the Reformation. 

The five extant plays of John Bale, bishop of Ossory, are 
at the opposite pole from the Interludes of Heywood. While 
more or less polemic. Bale's plays can be termed satirical only 
by the broadest application of the word. An outgrowth of 
the Reformation as they are, the little real satire they contain 
is of course religious and militant. 

In The Temptacyon of our Lorde^* the first speech of 
" Baleus Prolocutor " advocates the use of the " Word of 
God " as an authority in matters of religion and a means of 
defense against the assaults of the devil. More plainly satir- 
ical are a few lines of Satan's last speech : False priests and 
bishops, even the " Vicar of Rome," shall worship the devil, 
and Christ may worship whom He will! Apart from these 
passages, this Morality is wholly didactic. 

God's Promises, ^^ a setting forth of the doctrine of justifi- 
cation by faith, is even more innocent of satire than the pre- 
ceding. The Three Laws of Nature, Moses, and Christ, Cor- 
rupted by the Sodomites, Pharisees, and Papists,^^ — not an 
easily accessible play, — is, according to Professor Herford, a 
biblical plot made to serve as a vehicle for Protestant tenets. 
Its abstractions, such as Ambition, Avarice, and others, are 
monks and priests in disguise.^^ John Baptyste'^^ is in its 
controversial elements very similar to the preceding. 

It is, finally, to Kynge Johan}^ that we must look for Bale's 
contribution to dramatic satire. This play, written about 1546, 
is, first of all, a distinct product of the Reformation, a religi- 

" Fuller's Worthies Misc., I, ed. Grosart. 

^Dodsley's Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, i, 285 £. 

" Anglia, V, 137 f. 

" Herford, pp. 133, 134. 

'* Harleian Misc., I. 

" Cam. Soc. Pub., vol, 2, ed. Collier. 



215 

ous polemic, not a true Chronicle play. Bale seized upon the 
bare fact that John had been opposed by the Pope and by the 
French, and thus transforms the miserable, lying, treacherous 
knave into a hero ; he turns Stephen Langton into a seditious 
traitor; and presents his other historical characters so faintly 
that the reader feels no surprise when he finds each character 
" the double of an abstraction." The use of the mere Moral- 
ity for polemic purposes was not new — the Satire of the Three 
Estates preceded Kyng Johan by several years ; but the intro- 
duction into the Morality of actual historical personages, each 
of whom at the same time represents an abstract quality — as 
Langton, Dissimulation ; Pandulph, Private Wealth ; the Pope, 
Usurped Power, — this was quite new and, in its peculiar way, 
strikingly effective. 

To detail the story of the play would here be supereroga- 
tory, since Professor Morley furnishes an elaborate synopsis 
in the eighth volume of his English Writers, and Professor 
Ward a detailed analysis in his History. It would be equally 
superfluous to enter upon any criticism of the literary quality 
of the play or to discuss its place in the history of the English 
drama. It is enough to say that Kyng Johan, anomalous as 
it is in its general scheme, absurd in many of its details, yet 
attains as a whole considerable dignity and power. 

Lyndsay's influence is apparent in the idea of the " three 
estates " — here given as Commonalty, Nobility, and Clergy ; 
and England appears in the role taken in Lyndsay's play by 
John the Commonweal. Aside from this. Bale perhaps owes 
little to Lyndsay, and his play is not comparable to the Satire 
of the Three Estates in range of subject-matter or in variety 
of tone and style. That Kyng Johan is indebted to Kirch- 
meyer's Pammachius for its general plan is asserted by Pro- 
fessor Herford, who furnishes interesting parallels between 
the two plays.^^ We are here concerned only with the satir- 
ical content of the play ; and it cannot be denied that Bale's 
scorn of '' popery " finds expression that is often surprisingly 
vigorous. The tone of Kyng Johan as a whole, however, is 
moralistic and sombre rather than satirical. Bale was a man 

*• Herford, pp. 136, 137. 



216 

of one idea. His attack is direct and unsparing, without sub- 
tle thrust or lambent humor. Sarcasm and invective are his 
ready weapons ; his satire is the satire of utter scorn that will 
not condescend to play with the object of its contempt. As 
Dissimulation unveils his own methods and shamelessly ex- 
poses the practices of the Church, Bale's voice may be heard 
in the stinging indictment. Sedition's speech as a Pardoner, 
analogous to the burlesques in Chaucer, Lyndsay, Heywood, 
and Cock Lorell, shows the vulgarity of speech to which the 
bishop of Ossory could descend when bent upon his prey. 
Treason's plain speeches show how much the Church includes 
of Mosaic and of pagan rites and how little of Christ — 

" Nothynge at all, but the epystle and the gospell, 
And that is in Latyne that no man shoulde it knowe." 

It is quite possible that one single burlesque speech in any 
one of Heywood's Interludes accomplished more for the Ref- 
ormation than all the sarcasm and scorn and vulgarity of 
Bale's Kyng Johan. Yet the play is in itself a prophecy and 
a link in a chain — a prophecy of a time, little more than a gen- 
eration distant, when the drama of England was to show what 
satire could achieve in a dramatic form; a link in a chain, 
because it is but one of a long and mighty series of religious 
satires more or less dramatic, stretching down from the time 
of Langland and Chaucer, and also one of the many Protestant 
polemics of its own tempestuous period. 

Apart from the work of Skelton, of Heywood, and of Bale, 
we must turn to the mass of mainly anonymous Moralities and 
Interludes of the present period for further evidences of dra- 
matic satire. 

In such well-known plays as The Castle of Perseverance; 
The Nice Wanton; Mind, Will, and Understanding; Mankind, 
and Everyman, satire is practically absent. In the equally well- 
known Lusty Inventus the satire of the Reformation appears 
\n the speech of Hypocrisy, who asserts that he has set up, as 
snares for the innocent, all the trappings of Rome: 

*' Holy cardinals, holy popes, 
Holy vestments, holy copes. 



217 

Holy hermits, holy friars, 
Holy monks, holy abbots, 
Yea, and all obstinate liars," — 

and so on, through the list of all that was antipathetic to the 
Lutheran. In Hick Scorner, where the satire is wholly inci- 
dental, the speeches of Freewill and of Imagination give pic- 
tures of low life, and so connect with the Satire on Rogues. 

Into Nature,'^^ which is in form a true Morality, new ele- 
ments have entered. Some of its personages are more than 
mere abstractions, they are types ; and here and there through 
the play are glimpses of low life portrayed with vivid realism 
and genuine humor. The two speeches of Pride, distinct 
Satires on the dress and manners of the young gallant of the 
period, suggest Wynkyn de Worde's Treatise of this Gallant.-^ 
Gluttony, Wrath, Man, and other characters in Nature, join 
in producing a series of brief but telling sketches of life in 
the author's London. It is practically impossible in such a 
play to dissociate the satirical from the purely humorous 
elements. 

The Morality Albion Knight/^ which exists only as a frag- 
ment, was written some time between 1540 and 1566, and per- 
haps satirizes political conditions in the early years of Henry 
VIII. While the fragment extant does not deal with the Ref- 
ormation, it is probable that the play as a whole reviewed the 
entire conditions of its time. The fragment shows nothing 
new, and, coming after Bale and Lyndsay, is of no especial 
significance. 

In 1553 Kyng Johan found its answer in Respuhlica,-^ dis- 
tinctly a Catholic polemic. Respublica marks a religious reac- 
tion. But, while it is evidently an answer to the Protestant 
polemics, it is remarkable in that it makes no attempt to defend 
the ecclesiastical practices attacked by the Protestants, and is 
in no sense theological. On the contrary, it attempts to por- 
tray the economic condition of the country towards the close 

^ Ed. Brandl, Quellen d. welt. Dramas. 

^ See supra, p. 1 70 f . 

^Anonymous Plays, 2d Series, ed. Farmer, pp. 117 to 132. 

^ " Lost " Tudor Plays, ed. Farmer. 



218 

of Edward the Sixth's reign — England ruined by Protestant 
domination. People, though rather a comic character, who 
speaks in dialect, is very much in earnest as he complains of 
his sad lot. Avarice, Insolence, Oppression, and Adulation, 
Protestant ministers of state under Edward VI, through the 
disclosure of their own frauds, reflect severely upon the mal- 
administration of Edward's reign. Though tedious, diffuse, 
rather colorless, Respublica contains a few touches of real 
power. 

The Protestant side again finds an advocate in New Cus- 
tom,^^ an odd mixture of true Morality and sheer burlesque. 
Burlesque satire, directed against " popery," appears in the 
speeches of Hypocrisy and of the " popish priests," Perverse 
Doctrine and Ignorance. New Custom and Light of the Gos- 
pel are both ministers of the Reformed Faith, whose cry is 
*' Give the people light through reading the New Testament 
and preaching from its texts." 

While its epilogue declares that the school Interlude lack 
Juggler^^ (1553?) contains a double meaning and has great 
contemporary significance, and while Professor Gayley builds 
on this epilogue a plea for the satiric quality of the play, it 
is difficult to see in it anything more than amusing burlesque. 
Satire so completely hidden can hardly be effective. This 
same obscurity envelops the Interlude Godly Queen Hester,^'' 
written perhaps before 1530. Possibly the career of Wolsey 
is sketched in the downfall of Haman, but the treatment of 
the theme is anything but satirical. 

In The World and the Child^^ occurs a satiric dialogue be- 
tween Manhood and Folly. The speech of the latter connects 
with the Satire of Fools, as might be expected, but in one of 
its phases it is also vaguely reminiscent of Piers Plowman^* — 
for Folly, in his relations with various classes of society, is a 
welcome guest in the nunneries, and has for many years dwelt 

^Anonymous Plays, 3d Series, ed. Farmer, pp. 157-202. 

** Ibid, pp. 1-40. 

" Anonymous Plays, 2d Series, ed. Farmer, pp. 245-287. 

^ Dodsley's Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt. 

* See supra, p. 75. 



219 

with the friars, who crowned him king! Also mildly anti- 
papist are the speeches of Iniquity, the Vice in the Interlude 
King Darius, ^^ printed in 1565. 

The Four Elements^^ contains a trace of literary satire in 
the speech of the Messenger, who pleads for the English 
tongue as a vehicle for serious matter in place of the folly 
which now wholly employs it. The figure of Riot in The 
Interlude of Youth^^ reminds the reader of Skelton's Riot in 
the Bouge of Court. The Priest in The' Disobedient Child^^ 
inveighs against drunken clerks. It is scarcely necessary to 
record the faint traces of satire, social, political, and religious, 
that occur in the other Interludes and Moralities of the pres- 
ent period. Professor Ward states that several polemic plays, 
no longer extant, were produced in the later days of Henry 
VIII.^* These probably presented little variation on what has 
already been considered. Such controversial Moralities were 
continued on into the Elizabethan age. Robin Conscience and 
The Endightment against Mother Masse are satiric dialogues 
described by Professor Herford.^^ 

Taken as a whole, the plays satirical either wholly or in 
parts, written between the beginning of the sixteenth century 
and the accession of Elizabeth, present no subject-matter that 
differs radically from that found in the undramatic satire of 
the same period. The satire on low life, a phase of social 
satire, was shared by forms other than the drama; the satire 
on religious questions, while it chiefly characterizes the plays, 
is also found in other literary forms. It is rather in their pic- 
turesque and vivid treatment, sometimes approaching the truly 
dramatic, that the Moralities and Interludes from Magnyfy- 
cence to Albion Knight surpassed other more or less satirical 
verse of their time. This fact again illustrates the statement 
made in the introductory chapter of the present book — that 

^ Anon. Plays, 3d Series, ed. Farmer, pp 41-92. 

^^Dodsley's Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt. 

3« Ibid. 

'^ Ibid. 

"Ward, A History of English Dramatic Literature, Vol. I, p. 136. 

2* Herford, p. 55 ; 63-6. 



220 

only when satire actually takes the form of the drama, or at 
least employs the general dramatic method, does it achieve its 
highest and most effective expression. ^^ Religious satire was 
soon to fade from the drama ; but out of these crude attempts 
at the satiric play, after cross-fertilization from foreign 
sources, were finally to come The Alchemist, Volpone, and 
Bartholomew Fair. 

^^ See supra, p. 24. 



CHAPTER VIII 
Summary and Conclusion 

The Church the chief object of medieval satire in England. — Attitude 
of various satirists towards the Church. — The Goliards, Wireker, Gower, 
Chaucer, The Lollards, Dunbar, Skelton, Lyndsay. — Religious satire a 
gradual growth. — Political Satire. — Its constant appearance from the reign 
of John to that of Henry VIIL — Its value. — The Moral Satire. — Its lack 
of interest and power. — The Social Satire. — Its growth. — Its significance 
and value. — The tone of medieval verse-satire in England. — Its chaotic 
form. — General relation of this medieval product to later satire in verse. 
— The New Satire of Wyatt and the Elizabethans. 

I 

With the great names of Barclay, Skelton, and Lyndsay 
comes the close and the summing up of medieval satire in 
England. Nothing could better illustrate the characteristics 
of the English people through these three centuries than the 
subject-matter, the tone, and the form, of this medieval prod- 
uct. Of the subject-matter, the religious aspect was the most 
significant feature. It speaks volumes for the wretched con- 
dition of the church in England, that for centuries this condi- 
tion should have furnished the chief target for satirical attack. 
The immorality and ignorance of the clerical orders of every 
kind and degree, the sale of benefices, absentee clergy, plural 
livings, and other ecclesiastical corruptions, continue to fur- 
nish a perennial source of satire of every conceivable tone.^ The 
Goliardic writers and Nigellus Wireker laughed at this clerical 
corruption ; Gower wept over it ; Chaucer satirized it in his 
inimitable pictures of contemporary life. The Lollards, some- 
times abusing and sometimes ridiculing clerical immorality, 
did not confine themselves to this one theme, but demanded 
reforms in church doctrine as well as in the morals of the 

^ Satire against the clergy was the common property of medieval Europe. 
The English product is inferior to that of the Continent, at least in 
humor. See Schneegans, Lenient, passim. 

221 



222 

clergy. Dunbar treated the subject largely in burlesque; 
Barclay reverted to the generalized lament ; Skelton scolded, 
stormed, and abused ; and Lyndsay arraigned clerical corrup- 
tion with an effective mingling of ridicule and invective. The 
" Satire of the Reformation " sums up every phase of this 
religious subject-matter, enlarging on the scope of its prede- 
cessor, the Lollard satire of a century previous, and calling 
for reform in the morals, the doctrine, and the polity of the 
Church, with a voice sometimes harsh with invective and 
abuse, sometimes laughing with ridicule, but often effective, 
because earnest and sincere.^ 

This Religious Satire was a gradual growth. Through three 
centuries it became more comprehensive in its material, more 
outspoken and bitter in its tone. At last its purpose was 
effected, very differently from the expectations and desires of 
many of its exponents. Reform from within failed. Only 
radical methods from without could attain the object aimed 
at by almost every British satirist from Walter Map to Sir 
David Lyndsay. 

With the Reformation, this distinct variety of satire of 
course died away, though its echoes continued through the 
Elizabethan period, until ecclesiastical polity and doctrine 
were settled once and forever, and the clergy ceased to offer 
so inviting a target for satirical shafts. 

While this Religious Satire was a gradual growth, the Polit- 
ical Satire of the Middle Ages is an even more significant and 
distinct product of development. From the beginning, the 
political Satire shows the English interest in public affairs. It 
is far more inclined to personalities than the Religious Satire, 
and exhibits much more contemporary color. It begins with the 
sirventes against King John,^ and again appears in the weak and 
disastrous reign of Henry III and the turmoil of the Barons' 

^ In mere bulk, the satire of the Reformation in England cannot com- 
pare with the analogous product in France ; while in humor, literary 
power, general effectiveness, it falls far below that of France and that 
of Germany. 

^ See supra, p. 48 f. 



223 

War.* It fills the reign of Richard II with a strident cry 
against the weakness of the king and the corruption and in- 
competentcy of his ministers.^ It speaks again through the long 
and troublous reign of Henry VI and the Wars of the Roses f 
and finally culminates in the early part of the sixteenth cen- 
tury with the numberless and virulent attacks against the great 
ministers Wolsey and Cromwell, who, in the eyes of the people, 
represented wickedness in high places.'^ Usually direct and 
severe, such satire embodies little humor, but great vigor of 
expression. It is characteristic of English conservatism, that 
through the entire range of this political satire England's kings 
are usually spared, while upon royal ministers is laid the entire 
blame of maladministration. As the English people gained 
in power to govern and to express themselves, their political 
satire grew from small beginnings into one of the most power- 
ful instruments ever wielded for the expression of the people's 
rights. In Skelton's bitter attacks on Wolsey^ and in Lynd- 
say's vigorous calls for political reform in Scotland,® the 
Political Satire of medieval England culminates in a type 
replete with vitality and contemporary interest. 

This contemporary interest is fatally lacking in what may 
be termed the Moral Satire, the most prevalent but least 
effective variety of its kind in medieval literature. It is only too 
apt to be abstract and dull, for it is entirely free from personali- 
ties and exhibits but little contemporary color. On the contrary, 
it delights in a maximum of that " satirical commonplace " 
which more or less characterizes every variety of the medieval 
Satire, and is so fatal to permanent interest and power.^^ 
This didactic Satire on the virtues and vices is so apt to in- 
vade the domain of other varieties that very few medieval 
English satirical poems are entirely free from its influence. Yet, 
as in the poems of Gower, it is frequently found quite by itself. 

* See supra, p. 50 f. 
"See supra, p. 82 f. 

* See supra, p. 126 f. 
^ See supra, p. 172 f. 
^ See supra, p. 150 f. 

* See supra, p. 204 f. 
" See supra, p. z^' 



224 

Though perennial, it suffered a loss of vigor upon the advent of 
the greater individuality and realism of the Renaissance, when 
attention to actual life and its details became necessarily fatal 
to the dull abstractions of medievalism. The Satire on The 
Seven Deadly Sins survived till the Elizabethan period, but 
passed into something far more interesting through its greater 
attention to contemporary life. 

Far removed from the vague and ineffective generalities, the 
didacticism and dullness, of the Moral Satire, is the Social 
Satire on themes concrete and contemporary. In its begin-"" 
nings, this variety connects itself with the Moral Satire on 
the one hand and with the Religious Satire on the other. In- 
deed, at first it is largely identical with these varieties. But 
gradually a type is developed, dealing with purely social 
themes, such as the condition of the people, and sug- 
gesting their aspirations. Far back in the thirteenth cen- 
tury we see this type exemplified in the long poem on The 
Times of Edward 11}'^ Langland illustrates it, too, with 
increased vividness and power.^^ The long anonymous poems 
of the reign of Henry VIII again exemplify it, for Vox 
Populi, Vox Dei^^ is also of this kind. It is ever the voice 
of the people, sure and strong. Of humor there is little 
enough ; the touch is heavy ; the purpose distinctly reformatory. 
At last the type culminates in Lyndsay's powerful and vivid 
sketches of " Pauper " and " John the Commonweal."*^ 
While pathetic, there is yet something splendid, something epic, 
in this voice of a nation struggling upward to the light. 
In such an aspect, this Social Satire, crude and formless as it 
often is, assumes a considerable measure of dignity and power. 

In this sombre and earnest type we find little real character- 
ization and little genuine social satire of the lighter and more 
interesting kind. This was to come later. Yet satire of this 
kind also had its early beginnings. It manifests itself first in 
the genre pictures of Langland. It attains its best estate in the 

^^ See supra, p. 64 f. 

^^ See supra, p. yS f. 

^^ See supra, p. 173 f. 

" See supra, p. 206 f. 



225 

delightful contemporary sketches of Chaucer. But it is most 
characteristically a product of the Renaissance, with its humor, 
realism, and treatment of actual life. The Elynour Rum- 
mynge'^^ of Skelton is of this type; while a host of 
anonymous productions of the new period embody the same 
spirit. Even Barclay, when he forgets himself, indulges 
slightly in real social satire ; Dunbar glories in it ; Lyndsay 
exemplifies it finely in the Satire of the Three Estates. Sub- 
varieties of this kind are the so-called Fool Satire and Satire 
on Rogues,^® which picture low life with humor and a cer- 
tain amount of characterization. With the growth of the 
Renaissance comes an increase of contemporary detail, of local 
color, in the Social Satire. In this respect it offers an analogy 
to the growth of the drama through the earlier and more ab- 
stract Moralities to the later Moralities and Interludes with 
their humorous character-studies. Gradually this new Satire 
tends to displace the earlier, heavier, and more generalized 
type, and looks forward to the Social Satire of the Eliza- 
bethan classicists, and even beyond — to the Satire of Pope. It 
is the greatest variety of its kind. Having all the essentials 
of life within itself, it needs only the classical influence^^ from 
without to develope finally into a form highly representative 
of the period in which it flourishes. It is ever tending toward 
the dramatic, striving to fulfill the true function of the Satire — 
the picturing and the criticism of contemporary life. 

II 

Such, in brief, is the subject-matter of the medieval English 
Satire. In regard to the tone of this product little remains 
to be said. Its weapon is mainly invective, with few traces 
of genuine humor.^^ This lack of humor may perhaps be ex- 
plained by the didactic and reformatory purpose that inspired 
this medieval product, which arose as a popular mode of ex- 
pression and not as a literary genre. Yet its pessimistic tone 

^^ See supra, p. 149, 

^® See supra, p. 177 f. 

"See supra J p. 15 f. 

^^ See supra, p. 8. 



226 

is somewhat relieved by religious hopefulness : the world 
is not all bad; certain social classes are often exempted 
from the general censure. The didactic and constructive 
element appears in the representation of the ideal, as in 
Piers Plowman. Finally, with all its lack of individuality 
and self-revelation, with all its invective, didacticism, and dull- 
ness, the medieval verse-Satire in England still remains at its 
best estate a product dignified through its earnestness and 
sincerity. 

Ill 

Varied as is the subject-matter of this medieval Satire 
in England, it is perhaps in form that the greatest variety 
occurs. The form was, indeed, almost chaotic ; for we must 
remember that through these centuries the Satire was not a 
recognized genre. Even the name " Satire " itself was rarely 
used, and then only with the vaguest reference to the classics. 
The verse-form might or might not be stanzaic, as suited the 
whim of the writer. The poem might be of any length, in 
any meter. And the method was almost as varied as the form 
of verse. This method might be that of direct address, as in the 
Poem on the Times of Edward 11; again it might be narra- 
tive, as in Piei's Plowman; dramatic, as in the Satire of the 
Three Estates; or it might be the method of the popular ballad, 
as in Richard of Cornzuall. The characteristic style is diffuse 
and free from allusions of any kind. The Protean forms are 
bound together only by the unifying spirit of destructive 
criticism. 

IV 

Such is the typical medieval English Satire before the time 
of Wyatt — a poem embodying political, religious, and social 
subject-matter; in tone didactic, severe, of little humor, of 
much invective ; employing mainly the method of direct attack, 
with little individuality and little picturing of contemporary 
life; practically formless, yet through the centuries very grad- 
ually but distinctly tending to evolve from its chaotic condi- 
tion into a recognized literary genre. 



227 

The relation of this protoplasmic medieval product to the 
more finished form of the late seventeenth century cannot be 
treated here. It is more than possible, however, that the native 
English qualities of this early Satire passed in some measure 
into the Elizabethan imitations of Horace and Juvenal ; and, 
through these, bequeathed to the finished Satire of a century 
later a breadth of interests, a wide range of subject-matter, 
and a vigorous form of expression. These qualities, combined 
with those derived from the Classics, finally made the genre 
not a mere exotic imitation but a type thoroughly native to the 
soil. This happy blending of English and Classical qualities 
appears partly in the Satires of Sir Thomas Wyatt (c. 1540) ; 
it appears again and perhaps more fully in the imitative experi- 
ments of the Elizabethans ; but it is best illustrated in the work 
of Dryden and of Pope. 

With the year 1540 was reached the end of an era in the 
history of the English Satire. A new age began when Wyatt 
turned for his inspiration to Horace and to Alamanni. Some 
of the anonymous and elaborate Social Satires were yet to be 
written ; but the Medieval Satire, though still dominant, was 
on the decline. With the work of Wyatt a new species ap- 
peared — a Satire of classical origin, — quiet, polished, reflec- 
tive, individual, in almost every detail contrasting strangely 
with that spontaneous, uncouth, didactic, generalized product 
embodied in English verse-satire before the Renaissance. 



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Ward, A. W. A History of English Dramatic Literature. 3 
vols. London, 1899. 

Wine, Women, and Song. Medieval Latin Students' Songs, 
now first translated into English verse, with an essay 
by John Addington Symonds. London, 1889. 

Wolff, E. Reinke de Vos und satirische-didaktische Dichtung. 
Stuttgart, n.d. 

Wright, T. History of Caricature and of Grotesque in Liter- 
ature and Art. London, 1875. 



INDEX. 



Absalom and Achitophel, 32 
Addison, 6, 10 ; satiric essays, 7 
Aelfric, references to heaven and 

hell in his prose, 53 
Aeneas Silvius, 165 
Aeschylus, 25 
Aesop, 2y, 136; King Stork and 

King Log, 32 n. 
Against Evil Women, 139, 140 
Against Women Unconstant, balade, 

116 
Alamanni, 227 

Albion Knight, 211, 217, 219 
Alchemist, The, 7, 112, 220 
Alchemy, satire against, ii2f., 166 
Allegory, the satiric, 28 ; in Specu- 
lum Stultorum, 45 ; in Piers 
Plowman, 70-9 ; in The House of 
Fame, 11 4-6 
Anglo-French satire, 36, 37 ; songs 
against King John, 48f . ; against 
papal tax, 49f. ; against monastic 
clergy, 57f. ; against public fraud, 

59 

Anglo-Latin satire, 39 ; Speculum 
Stultorum, 43-6 ; De Vita Mona- 
chorum,, 46 ; Entheticus, 47 

Anglo-Latin satirists and epigram- 
matists, 17 and n., 36, 39 ; Wireker, 
43f. ; Neckham, 46 ; J ohn of 
Salisbury, 47. 

Anti-Jacobin, The, satire of, 5 

Apocalypsis Goliae, analysis of, 40 

Archilochus, 11, 23 

Aretino, Pietro, 30 

Ariosto, Satires, 7, 18 

Aristophanes, 6, 24, 25, 33 ; plays, 
7, 14, 18; The Frogs, 24 

Art of Cookery, The, 21 n. 

Art of Love, The, 21 n. 

Art of Preaching, The, 21 n. 

Awdelay, John, 54, 181 



Bale, John, 212 ; Temptacyon of our 



Lorde, 214; God's Promises, 214; 
Three Laii's, 214; John Baptyste, 
214; Kynge Johan, 214-6; his sa- 
tiric method, 216, 217 

Ball, John, doggerel rhymes, 82 

Ballad of Luther, the Pope, A Car- 
dinal and a Husbandman, A, 195 

Ballads, politico-satirical, 4 ; of 
Civil War and Protectorate, 4, 7 ; 
in Wars of the Roses, 130, 131 n. 

Ballat of the Fen5eit Freir, 137, 141 

Bansley, Charles, 177 

Barclay, Alexander, 5, 178, 180, 222, 
22s; The Ship of Fools, 155-64; 
Eclogues, 164-6; idea of satire, 
156; characterization, 159 ; satiric 
methods, isgf. ; remedy for fol- 
lies, i6of. ; pictures of real life, 
161 f.; lack of poetry, 162; in- 
fluence of classical satire upon, 
i62f. ; medieval ethics, 163; in- 
dividualizing tendency, i63f. ; his 
English heritage, 164; subsequent 
influence, 164; his court-satire, 
165 ; literary satire, 165 ; Mantuan 
and Aeneas Silvius, i65f. ; in- 
fluence of Eclogues, 166 

Barlow, Jerome, 185 

Bartholomew Fair, 220 

Batrachomyomachia, The, 20, 23, 
25, 26 

Battle of Lewes, The, 50 

Beast- Lpic, The, 7 ; as parody, 26f. 

Beast-Fable, The, 27f., 109 

Bede, Vision of Furseus and Vision 
of Drihthelm, 53 

Beggars and Idlers, satire against, 
73, i8of. 

Bel Acueil, in Roman de la Rose, 
104 

Bembo, epigrams, 17 

Benedictines, the, 39 

Beranger, songs, 7, 37 



235 



236 



Bernard de Rovenac, sirventes 
against Henry III, 49 

Berni, 8, 20 n., 30 

Bertrand de Born, sirventes, 2,7 

Bertrand de Born, the younger, sir- 
vent e, 48 

Bishop Golias, i, 38 

Bishops of Bath, Norwich, Win- 
chester, Rochester, and Ely, satire 
against, 48 

Blickling Homilies, 35 

Boccaccio, 106, 109 

Boccalini, 33 

Boileau, 5, 6, 16; Satires, 7; Le 
Lutrin, 22 

Boothe, William, bishop of " Ches- 
ter," satire against, 128, 129 

Bouge of Court, The, 144, 145, 213, 
219; as court-satire, 146; analy- 
sis of, i46f; origin of name, 
146 n. 

Brandt, Sebastian, 119, 147 n., 155, 
158 

Buchanan, George, epigrams, 17; 
as satirist of the Reformation, 
32 n. 

Burchiello, Domenico, 20 n. 

Burgundy, Duke of, defection, 124; 
satire against, 125 

Burlesque, as a prose genre, 7 ; as 
a poetic genre, 7 ; as a satiric 
method, i8f. ; in the Middle Ages, 
25f. ; Goliardic burlesque, 4of. ; 
in Speculum Stidtorum, 45 ; in 
Satire on the Men of Stockton, 
83 ; in Council of London, 88 ; in 
ballads on siege of Calais, 125; 
in parody of the Mass, 129; in 
Chaucer, 98-117, passim; in Dun- 
bar, 136-43, passim; in Cock 
Lorell, i79f. ; in Heywood, 2i3f. ; 
in New Custom, 218 
Butler, Samuel, i, 5, 7, 14; Hudi- 

bras, 3, 18, 22, 23, 28 
Byron, George Gordon, i, 4, 8, 14; 
Don Juan, 7, 23, 28 ; burlesque 
poetry, 18; Vision of Judgment, 
22 ; English Bards and Scotch 
Reviewers, 33 



Calais, siege of, satiric ballads, 125 

Cambridge, Richard Owen, Scrib- 
bleriad, 22 

Candide, 7 

Canning, George, i ; Knife-Grinder, 
21 

Canon's Yeoman's Tale, The, analy- 
sis of, II2f. 

Canterbury Tales, The, 98, 99, 100; 
satire in General Prologue, 100- 
103 ; The Pardoner's Tale and 
prologue, i03f, ; prologue to Wife 
of Bath's Tale, io4f. ; envoy to 
Clerk's Tale, 105; interlude be- 
fore Monk's Tale, 105 ; Mer- 
chant's Tale, 109 ; Nun's Priest's 
Tale, i09f. ; Friar's Tale, iii ; 
Summoner's Tale, inf.; Canon's 
Yeoman's Tale, ii2f. ; Sir Thopas, 
ii3f. 
Caporali, Cesare, 33 
Caricature, 18 

Castle of Perseverance, The, 216 
Catullus, epigrams, 17 
Cervantes, 7, 14; Don Quixote, 7; 

Viaje al Parnaso, 33 
Champion des Dames, y2 
"Character" writers, 163 
Chansons des Gestes, parodies of, 

25f. 
Chaucer, Geoffrey, i, 5, 162, 207, 
213, 216, 221, 225 ; Friar's Tale, 
7 ; Sir Thopas, 26 ; Nun's Priest's 
Tale, 27 n. ; House of Fame, 28 ; 
influence of Jean de Meung, y2 ; 
his satiric poetry, 98-1 17 ; general 
character of his satire, 98 ; point 
of view, 99 ; his satiric methods, 
100; indebtedness to fabliau, 107; 
his fabliaux, 109-12 ; his place in 
the history of English satire, 117; 
influence upon immediate succes- 
sors, 118 
Churchill, Charles, i, 6, 10 
Cistercians, the, 39 
Classes, Social, satire against, 74, 
84, 94 ; on classes represented by 
individuals, 100-17, 166, 179; rise 
of " Class satire," 66f. 
Classical Latin Satire, The, 3, ion. ; 



237 



evolution of, 15 ; description of, 
isf. ; burlesque element, 23 ; moral 
and social elements, 33 
Clergy, the, satire against, 4of., 44f., 
46, 58, 59, 65f., 74i; 81, 84, 94, 
100, III, 132, 142, i5if., 172, 
iSgf., 191, 192, 201, 202, 205, 206, 
208, 213, 219. 
Clerk's Tale, The, envoy to, 105 
Cleveland, John, i, 4, 5 
Cochlaeus, i88f. 
Cock Lorell's Bote, loi, 163, 213, 

216; analysis of, i78f. 
Cognizances of the Nobles, in Rich- 
ard the Redeless, 95, 96 ; reasons 
for use in satire, 126, 127; in 
Wars of the Roses, 130 
Colyn Cloute, by Skelton, 145 ; analy- 
sis of, i5of. 
Complaint of the Plowman, The, 

analysis of, 89f. 
Complaynt of Bagsche the Kingis 

aidd Hound, The, 203 
Complaynt of Schir David Lyndesay 

to the Kingis Grace, The, 201 
Confessio Amantis, satire in pro- 
logue, 94 
Confession of Golias, The, 4of. 
Conquest, the, effect on English sa- 
tire, z^ 
Consistory Courts, satire against, 

56f., 75, 135, 203, 207 
Copland, Robert, 180 
Coppeta, Francesco, burlesque son- 
nets, 20 
Council of London, the, trial of 

Wyckliffe, 87 
Council of London, The, Satire, 83 ; 

analysis of, 87f. 
"Court-satire," in Dunbar, 139; in 
Skelton, 146-8 ; in Barclay, 165 ; 
in Lyndsay, 202, 203 
Cowper, William, i 
Cratinus, 24 
Cromwell, Thomas, 172; satire 

against, 173, 223 
Cytezen and Uplondyshman, The, 
analysis of, 166 

Dame Sirith, 108, 109 



Dance of the Sevin Deidly Synnis, 
The, 141 

Dante, 114 

" Daw Topias," possible author of 
anti-Lollard Satire, 91 

De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, 106 

De Conjiige non Ducenda, 41, 122, 
175, 176 

De Criice Denarii, 41 

Defence of Women, The, 176 n. 

DeFoe, Daniel, lampoons, 7 ; satiric 
pamphlet, 14 n. 

De Mundi Miseria, 41 

De Numnio, 41, 42 

Deslongchamps, zy 

Dialogue, the satiric, 7, 13 

Dialogue, The, Occleve's, 176 

Dialogue between the Body and the 
Soul, 53 

Disobedient Child, The, 219 

Divine Comedy, The, as a vision of 
Heaven and Hell, 53 ; relation to 
The House of Fame, 114 

Dit d'Aventure, 25f. 

Doctor, the, as a satiric type, i02f. 

Doctor Double Ale, igii. 

Don Juan, by Byron, 7, 22,, 28 

Don Quixote, 5, 7 

Donne, John, i, 16 

Dreme, The, 200 

Drunkenness, satire against, 77, 192, 
219 

Dryden, John, i, 2, 5, 6, 13, 36, 
227; Mac Flecknoe, 11, 14, 33; 
burlesque poetry, 18; Absalom 
and Achitophel, 32 

Dunbar, William, 57, 134, 155, 177, 
197, 198, 222, 225 ; satiric poetry, 
136-43 ; character and times, 136 ; 
nature and genesis of his satire, 
I36f. ; range of his satire, 137; 
humor, 138; form of his satiric 
poems, 138; sum of characteris- 
tics as satirist, 143 
Dunciad, The, 20, 22, 31, 33 

Eclogue, the satiric, of Barclay, 
Googe, Spenser, and Gay, 4 ; Bar- 
clay's, 164-6 



238 



Edward I, King, satire in reign of, 
56-63 

Edward II, King, satire in reign of, 
63-8 ; satire against, 67f. 

Edward III, King, satire in reign 
of, 68-79 '1 satire against, 70 

Edward IV, King, satire in reign 
of, I32f. 

Edward VI, King, satire in reign 
of, 173-77, 194-6; economic trou- 
bles, 173 ; growth of Reforma- 
tion, i94f. ; Protestantism at court, 

i95f. 
Elegy, the, i 
Elegy on a Lap-Dog, 21 
Eleven Pains of Hell, The, analysis 

of, 54-5 

Endightment against Mother Masse, 
The, 219 

English Bards and Scotch Review- 
ers, 33 

Epicharmus, 2s 

Epigram, the, 7 ; Elizabethan and 
Augustan, 4 ; relation to the Sa- 
tire, i7f. ; Greek epigram, 17; 
Martialian, 17; place in history 
of the English Satire, i7f. 

Erasmus, 6, 10, 14, 144; Praise of 
Folly, 7 

Essay, the satiric, 7 

Eubeus of Paros, 23 

Everyman, 216 

Exhortation to the Nobles and Com- 
mons of the North, An, 173 

Fable, the satiric, 4, 7 ; of Marie 
de France, 7 ; of Gay and Prior, 
7 ; of LaFontaine, 7 ; Beast- 
Fable, 27f. 

Fabliau, the, 5, 7 ; influence upon 
Chaucer, 107 ; in France, 107, 108 ; 
not primarily satirical, 108; in 
England, 108, 109 ; various fab- 
liaux, 108-12; in dramatic form, 
213 

Fabliaux di Cognaigne, li, 55, 58f. 

Farce, the French, 7 

Fashions, satire on, 56, 170, 171, 
203, 217 

Fastnachtspiel, the, 7 n. 



Fescennine Verses, 12 

Fischart, 14, 18 

Fischer, 27 

Flemings, the, satire against, 125 

Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie, 
The, 141 

"Fool Satires," 46, ii9f., 155-64, 
211, 218, 225 

Folengo, Teofilo, Orlandino and 
Maccaronea, 18, 20 

Four Elements, The, 219 

Four P's, The, loi, 213 

Fox and the Wolf, The, 27x1, 109 

Franc, Martin, 72 

France, satire against, 69 

Franco, Matteo, 20 n. 

Fraser, Sir Simon, 61 

Fraud, satire against, 59, 121, 139 

Friar, the, as a satiric type, loi 

Friar's Tale, The, 7 ; analysis of, 
III 

Friars, the, as objects of satire, 44f., 
65, 75, 81, 87, 88, loi. III, 132, 
142, 189, 201, 205, 208; minis- 
terial work, 52 ; spiritual degen- 
eration, 57, 59 

Frogs, The, 24 

Froschmeuseler, the, 26 

Gargantua, 7 

Gautier of Sens, 38 n. 

Gaveston, Piers, satire against, 67f. 

Gay, John, satiric fables, 4 ; paro- 
dies, 20f. 

Geburt Jesu, 175 

" General Satire on all Classes of 
Society, A," 42 

Gifford, William, i, 5, 11, 16; Sa- 
tires, 3 

Godfrey of Winchester, epigrams, 
17 and n. 

Godly Queen Hester, 218 

God's Promises, 214 

Goethe, Reineke Fuchs, 27 

Golden Targe, The, 136 

Goldsmith, Oliver, 33 n. 

Goliardic satire, 5 ; origin, nature, 
and history, 37f. ; examples, 4of, 
47f., 50, 67 



239 



Goliards, the, poetry, 36, 213, 221 ; 

origin, z^ 
Gongora, 20 n. 

Googe, Barnaby, eclogues, 166 
Gower, John, 47, 98, 100, 144, 182, 
197, 221, 2.22, ; Vox Clamantis, 
83-5 ; Tripartite Chronicle, 85 ; 
On the Reign of Rich. II, 93f. ; 
The Search for Light, 94 ; pro- 
logue to Confessio Amantis, 94 
Grotesque, the, in satire, 18 
Guillaume de Digulleville, Le Pele- 
rinage de la Vie Hiimaine and 
Pelerinage de I'Anie, 53 

Hall, Joseph, i, 16 

Handlyng Synne, analysis of, 62f. 

Hegemo Thasius, 23 

Henry HI, sirventes against, 49 ; 

satire in reign of, 49-56 
Henry IV, King, satire in reign of, 

85, 118-24; conspiracies against, 

123 ; no satire against, i23f. 
Henry V, King, satire in reign of, 

124-6; no satire against, 124 
Henry VI, King, satire in reign of, 

126-32 ; political events in reign 

of, I26f. 

Henry VIII, King, satire in reign 
of, 168-73, 177-94 ; social changes, 
i68f. ; dissolution of monasteries, 
172; "The Pilgrimage of Grace," 
172; vagabondage, i77f. ; the Re- 
formation and religious parties, 
i8if. ; translation of the Bible, 

l82f. 

Henry of Huntingdon, epigrams, 17 

and n. 
Henryson, Robert, fables, 27, 134-6' 
Hey wood, John, 216; epigrams, 17; 

Interludes, loi, 204, 212, 213 
Hick S corner, 217 
Hipponax, 23 
Homer, 6, 11 
Horace, 6, 8, 11, 14, 15, 23, 32, Z3^ 

98, 99, 227 ; Satires, 7 ; " Appian 

bore," 23 
House of Fame, The, 28, 103 ; 

analysis of, 11 4-6; relation to 



The Divine Comedy, 114; satire 

in, 116; personal element, 116 
How Dunbar was desyrd to be ane 

Freir, 137, 138; analysis of, 142 
How myschaunce regneth in Inge- 

lond, 132 
How the Plowman learned his Pater 

Noster, 80 n. 
Hudibras, 3, 7, 18, 22, 22, 28 
Hunt, Leigh, 2,3 
Hutten, Ulrich von, 6 ; dialogues, 7, 

14; use of travesty, 20; Phala- 

rismus, 31 
Hwon holy chireche is vnder note, 

53 
Hye Way to the Spyttel Hons, The, 
analysis of, i8of. 

Image of Hypocrisy, The, analysis 

of, I92f. 

In Vice most vicius he excellis, 141 

Innocent III, pope, 47 

Interlude of Youth, The, 211, 219 

Interludes, satire in, 211; confusion 
with Moralities, 211 ; pictures of 
"low life," 211; Heywood's, 
2i3f. ; other Interludes, 216-19, 
passirn 

"It may wele ryme, etc.," 119 

Jack Cade's Rebellion, 130 

lack Juggler, 218 

Jack Upland, origin, 90 ; analysis 

of, 9of. 
Jean de Meung, satire in Roman de 

la Rose, 7 if.; influence upon 

Langland, 7if. ; upon Chaucer, 72 ; 

upon Satire on Woman, 175 
Jeste des Dames, La, 175 
John, King, 47 ; sirventes against, 

48f. 
John Baptyste, 2x4 
John Bon and Mast Person, 193 
John de Wethamstede, 130 
John of Bridlington, 70 
John of Gaunt, 85 
" John the Common Weal," in 

Lyndsay's satire, 201, 204, 207, 

215, 224 
Jonson, Ben, 7, 112 



240 



Judges, satire against, 56, 75 
Juvenal, 5, 6, 8, 9, ion., 15, 24, 
33, ^76, 227; Satires, 7, 23 

King, William, 21 n. 
King Darius, 211, 219 
King Henry VI, 127 
Kirchmeyer, 215 
Kittei's Confessioiin, 203 
Knife-Grinder, The, 21 
Krankheit der Messe, 186 n. 
Kyng Johan, 212, 214-6 

LaFontaine, 5, 27, 136 

La Secchia Rapita, 7, 20 

Lampoon, the 7 

Land of Cokaygne, The, 39, 55, 58 

Langland, William, i, 5, 98, 100, 

148, 180, 181, 186, 205, 216, 224; 

Piers Plowman, 70-9 ; Richard 

the Redeless, 95f. 
Langton, Stephen, 47, 215 
Lapps and Greenlanders, primitive 

satire among, 30 n. 
Latin Poems Commonly Attributed 

to Walter Mapes, 38 
Le Lutrin, 7, 22 
Lenvoy a Bttkton, ii6f. 
Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan, 116 
Lessing, fables, 27 
Letter of Cupid, The, 176 
Literary Satire, The, 33 
Little John Nobody, 196 
Lollards, the, satire for and against, 

85-92 ; persecution of, 90 
London Lickpenny, analysis of, 

121 f.; authorship, 121 n. 
" Low Life," satire on, 148, 149, 

179, 212, 217 
Lowell, J. R., 4 ; Fable for Critics, 

33 
Lucian, 6, 14; dialogues, 7; epi- 
grams, 17; use of travesty, 19 
Lucilius, Latin satirist, 15, 23 
Lucilius, Greek epigrammatist, 17 
Lusty Inventus, 212, 216 
Liitel Soth sermun. A, 5 if., 55 
Luther, 32 n., 151, 185, 207; satire 

against, 194, 205 n. 
Lydgate, John, 46, 158, 159, 164, 



170, 182, 189; satirical poems, 
II 9-2 I 

Lyndsay, Sir David, i, 5, 32 n., loi, 
134, 135, 136, 137, 167, 183, 213, 
216, 217, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225 ; 
life of, i97f. ; as man and as poet, 
i98f. ; genesis of satiric poems, 
199; range of material, 199; as 
satirist of the Reformation, 200 ; 
satiric poems, 200-10; immunity 
from persecution, 209 ; contribu- 
tion to the Satire, 210; influence 
upon Bale, 215 

Lyric, the, i 

Maccaronea, 18 . 

Mac Flecknoe, 11, 14, 22, 23, 31, 33 

Magna Charta, 67 

Magnyfycence, 21 2i., 219 

Manciple, the, as a satiric type, 102 

Mankind, 216 

Manner of the World Nowadays, 
The, 170 

Mantuan, eclogues, i64f. 

Manuel, 186 n. 

Manuel des Peschiez, 63 

Map, Walter, i, 4, 37, 38, 47, 151, 
181, 189, 222; Goliardic poems 
sometimes attributed to him, 4of. 

Margites, 23, 25 

Marie de France, fables, 7, 26, 27, 
136 

Martial, epigrams, 7, 17 

Mass, the, satire against, 185-90, 
193, 219 

Menander, 25 

Merchant's Tale, The, 109 

Merry Play betzveen John the Hus- 
band, Tyb the Wife, and Sir John 
the Priest, A, 213 

Miller, the, as a satiric type, 102 

Mind, Will, and Understanding, 216 

Minnesingers, the, satire, 37 n.; love 
poetry, 175 

Minot, Lawrence, 63, 125; songs, 
68f. 

Miracle Plays, satire in, 212 

Miseriae Curialiuni, 165 

Mock- Epic, the, 21 f. 



241 



Mock-Heroic, the, 4, 7, 18, 2if., 2a 
Moliere, satiric comedies, 7, 24 
Monarchic, The, 200, 203 
Monk, the, as a satiric type, 100 
Monks, the, satire against, 40, 43f., 
46, 58, 59, 65, 81, 87, 100, 189, 
191 
Monk's Tale, The, 106, 107; inter- 
lude before, 105; interlude fol- 
lowing, 106-7 
Moralities, satire, 211; confusion 
with Interludes, 211; low life, 
211; various Moralities, 216-9, 
passim 
More, Edward, 176 n. 
More, Sir Thomas, 144; epigrams, 

17 

Morgante Maggiore, 7, 18 
Mother Hubberd's Tale, 27 
Murner, 32 n. 

Narenschiff, the, 119, 147 n., 155; 

relation to The Ship of Fools, 

156 
Nature, 217 

Neckham, Alexander, 46, 85 
New Custom, 218 
Nice Wanton, The, 216 
Novel, the satiric novel, 7 
Nowadays, analysis of, i69f. 
Nun's Priest's Tale, The, 27 n. ; 

analysis of, io9f. 

Occleve, Thomas, poem on Old- 
castle, 9if. ; appeal to Henry V, 
122; ballade on interment of Rich. 
II, 122; The Letter of Cupid, 
176; Dialogue, 176 

Ode, the, i 

Of Men Lif that wonip in Lond, 59 

Old English Miscellany, An, 54 

Oldcastle, Sir John, 91, 124, 191 

Oldham, John, 10 

On the Council of London, 19 n. 

Order of Fair Ease, The, 39 

" Order of Fair Ease, The," 58 

" Order of the Ass, The," 45 n., 84 

Orlandino, 18 

Owl and the Nightingale, The, 57 

Ovid, 85 



Pain and Sorrow of Evil Marriage, 
The, 176 

Pammachius, 215 

Pantcha-Tantra, the, 27 

Papal Court, satire against, 47f., 203 

Pardoner, the, as a satiric type, loi, 
i03f., 179, 207, 213, 216 

Pardoner and the Friar, The, loi, 
213 

Pardoner s Tale, The, analysis of, 
i03f. 

" Parnassian poems," 4, 2>2> 

Parody, as a satiric method, 20 ; 
Goliardic parodies, Ch. 11, passim 

Persius, 15 

Personal Satire, The, 3of. 

Personal satire, against King John, 
48f. ; anti-Wyckliffite clergy, 88 ; 
Oldcastle, 9 if.; King Rich. II, 
95f. ; Bushey, Scrope, Greene, 
Bagot, Ver, 95f. ; House of Lan- 
caster, 123 ; Duke of Burgundy, 
125; Say and Daniel, i27f. ; Suf- 
folk, 127-30; Boothe, 128; Don- 
ald Owre, 141 ; Friar Damian, 
141 ; Wolsey, 150-55, passim, 
185-90, passim; Thomas Crom- 
well, 173; Father Mathias, etc., 
188; Luther, 194; the Pope, 195, 
214. 

Petrarch, 20 

Phaedrus, 27 

Pierce the Plozvman's Crede, 89, 
90 ; analysis of, 8of. 

Piers Plowman, 1, 28, 94, 148, 182, 
211, 218, 226; analysis of, 70-9; 
authorship, 70 n. ; influence of 
Roman de la Rose, 71 ; allegorical 
form, 72 ; personifications, 7z \ 
satire against idlers, social classes, 

74 ; civil and ecclesiastical courts, 

75 ; clergy, 75 ; constructive ele- 
ment, 7(i ; genre pictures, 76f. ; 
contemporary allusions, 77 ; hu- 
mor, 78 ; place in history of Eng- 
lish Satire, 79 ; influence, 80 ; imi- 
tations of, 8of. 

" Pilgrimage of Grace, The," nature 

and causes, 172; in satire, 173 
Pilgrimages, Shrines, and Image 



242 



Worship, satire against, 77f., 203 
Pitt, Christopher, 21 n. 
Peasants' Revolt, the, causes, 81, 

82 ; in satire, Ssf, 
Play, the satiric, 7, 13 
Plowman, the, as a type, 75, 8 if. 
Poem on the Times of Edward II, 

A, 169, 224, 226; analysis of, 64-6 
Poema Morale, 53 
Political Satire, the, in general, 3 if.; 

in medieval England, 222f. 
Poor, the, satire on oppression of, 

65, i35f., 170, 174, 188, 2o6f., 

208 
Poor Help, A, 194 
Pope, Alexander, i, 6, 7, 11, 14, 

16, 32, 36, 98, 225, 227 ; epigrams, 

17; burlesque poetry, 18; Dun- 

ciad, 20, 22, 31, 33; Satires, 7, 11 
Praise of Folly, The, 7, 13 
Pricke of Conscience, The, 62 ; 

analysis of, 6s 
Prior, Matthew, satiric fables, 4 
Proper Dialogue Between a Gen- 
tleman and a Husbandman, A, 

191 
Prophecy of Golias, The, 41 
Prophecy of John of Bridlington, 

69f. 
Proud Wives Pater Noster, The, 

analysis of, i76f. 
Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, 7, 18 

Quatern of Knaves, 181 and n. 

Rabelais, 6, 14, 18, 210 ; Gargantua, 7 
Ragguagli di Parnaso, 33 
Ragman Roll, 122, 175 
Raoul de Houdin, Songe d'Enfer and 

la Voie de Paradis, 53 
Rape of the Lock, The, 22 
Rede Me and Be Nott Wrothe, 185- 

90, 191 ; authorship, 185 ; genesis, 

185 ; confiscation by Wolsey, 186 ; 
relation to Krankheit der Messe, 

186 n.; form, 187; subject-matter, 
187; personal satire, 188; tone, 
190; verse-form, 190 

Reformation, Satire of the, 181-96, 
200, 205-9, 214-6, 2i7f., 219 



Religious Satire, The, 22if. 
Renart le Contrefait, 26 
Replycacion, The, i84f., 192 
Respublica, 211, 212, 2i7f. 
Retaliation, The, S3 n. 
Reve, the, as a satiric type, 102 
Richard II, King, 85 ; satire against, 

95f. ; satire in reign of, 80-117 
Richard of Cornwall, Earl, ballad 

against, 5of. 
Richard of Cornwall, English ballad, 

51, 226 
Richard the Redeless, analysis of, 

95f. ; authorship, 95 n. 
Richert, French fabliau, 107 
Robene and Makyne, 134 
Robert Mannyng, Handlyng Synne, 

62 f. 
Robin Conscience, 219 
Rogues, satire on, 178-81, 211, 217, 

225 
Rollenhagen, 26 
Roman de la Rose, the, 5, 28, 46, 

104, 146 n., 175 
Roman de Renart, 7 ; cycle of, 26f. ; 

as source of material, 109 
Roman de Ron, 82 n. 
Romance, metrical, parody of, 25, 

II 3f- 
Roy, William, 185 
Ruin of a Realm, lyii, 
Rutebeuf, 210 
Saint Patrick's Purgatory, 54 

Satire, the, i ; gradual development, 
2 ; confusion of terms, 2 ; satire. 
Satire, and the satiric spirit, 3 ; 
classical Latin Satire, 3 ; Anglo- 
Latin Satires, 4, 5 ; the Lollard 
Satire, 4 ; allegorical Satire, 4 ; 
Satire on Woman, 4 ; Satire of 
the Reformation, 4 ; on Rogues, 4 ; 
"Parnassian" Satire, 4; rise and 
progress in England, 4f. ; foreign 
influences, 5; perennial life, 12; 
the Satire in prose, 13 ; methods of 
expression, 14 ; the grotesque and 
the burlesque Satire, i8f. ; dis- 
tinction between Satire and other 
genres, 29f. ; division into groups. 



243 



3of. ; the Personal Satire, sof. ; 
Greek lyric Satires, 30 ; the Polit- 
ical Satire, 31 ; the Moral and 
Social Satire, 32 ; the Literary 
Satire, 33 
Satire, definition, 3 ; Goliardic, 4 ; 
Trouvere, 4, 36 ; Civil War, 5 ; 
grotesque and burlesque, i8f. ; 
Greek, 2si. ; among Lapps and 
Greenlanders, 30 n. ; in Anglo- 
Saxon literature, 35 ; schools, 36 ; 
in sermons, 52f. ; in Visions of 
Heaven and Hell, 53f. ; lack of 
political satire in reign of Ed. 
II, 64f. ; rise of class-satire, 66f. ; 
in fabliaux, 107 f. 

Satire, objects of: alchemy, q. v.; 
astrologers, 162; beggars and 
idlers, q. v.; bishops, 48, 172; 
celibacy, 105; chivalry, 140; so- 
cial classes, q. v. ; clergy, q. v. ; 
consistory courts, q. v. ; courts, 
q. V. ; drunkenness, q. v. ; fame, 
116; fashions, q. v.; fortune, 116; 
France, 69 ; fraud, q. v. ; incon- 
sistency, 119; judges, q. v.; Lol- 
lards, q. v. ; low life, q. v. ; mar- 
riage, ii6f. ; Mass, q. v.; metrical 
romance, ii3f. ; money, 4if. ; papal 
court, 47f,, 203 ; peddlers, 203 ; 
persons, see " personal satire ; " 
pilgrimages, etc., q. v. ; politics in 
Scotland, 140; oppression of the 
poor, q. V. ; public manners, i32f. ; 
Reformation, q. v. ; rogues, q. v. ; 
rumor, 116; scholasticism, 62; 
Scotch, q. V. ; Seven Deadly Sins, 
q. v.; sins of the city, 166; so- 
cial parasites, 42 ; society in gen- 
eral, 42 ; tailors, q. v. ; the times, 
q. v.; vices in abstract, 94, 132; 
woman, q. v. 

Satire on Edinburgh, 140 

Satire on the Men of Stockton, A, 
83 

Satirical spirit, the, nature and 
working, 6f. ; destructive element, 
8 ; humorous element, 9 ; exag- 
geration, 9 ; reformatory purpose, 
id; stimuli, 10; instruments, 11 



Satirists, great English, i ; Eliza- 
bethan, 5; Restoration and 
Georgian, 5 

Satyrical Ballad, A, 121 

Savary of Mauleon, 48 

Scaliger, J. J., epigrams, 17 

Scarron, Virgile Travesti, 7, 19 

School-House of Women, The, 176 

Scotch, the. Satire against, 61, 125 

Scribbleriad, The, 22 

Scrope, Richard, Archbishop of 
York, 123 

Sermon joyeiix, 7 

Seven Deadly Sins, satire against, 
94, 171, 224 

Sheffield, John, Earl of, 33 

Shepherd's Calendar, The, 166 

Shepherd's Week, The, 20 

Ship of Fools, The, 155, 178, 180; 
analysis of, 156-64; variations 
from Narrenschiff, 156; moral 
character, 157; literary character, 
157; popularity, 157; pictures, 
158; form, 158; classes of Fools, 
characterization, 159; satire 
against classes and religious sa- 
tire, 160 ; constructive element, 
161 ; bookish origin, 161 ; pictures 
of real life, 161 f.; poetic quality, 
162; influence of classical satire, 
i62f. ; medieval ethics, 163; Eng- 
lish elements, 164; subsequent in- 
fluence, 164 

Showing and Declaring the Pride, 
and Abuse of Women Nowadays, 
177 
Sim, the 24, 25 

Simon de Montfort, Earl, 50 
Simonides of Amorgos, 23 
Sir Thopas, 26, 98, 113 
Sirvente, 4 and n., 5, z^, 2>7 and n., 

48f., 222 
Skelton, John, i, 4, 5, 46, 57, 134, 
162, 170, 173, 182, 192, 193, 194, 
197, 202, 205, 210, 211, 2i2f., 216, 
219, 221, 222, 223, 22$ ; Satires 
against Wolsey, 31 n.; Satires, 
143-55 ; use of satire, 144 ; life, 
i44f. ; meter, 145 ; heritage, i4sf. ; 
attitude toward Wolsey, 150; sub- 



244 



ject-matter, 151 ; qualities as sa- 
tirist, i54f. ; Replycacion, i84f. ; 

Magnyfycence, 212 
" Social Parasites, The," 42 
Society, generalized Satire against, 

42 
Song against the Friars, 88f. 
Songe d'Enfer, 53 
Songs, against French and Scotch, 

4 ; of Beranger, 7 
Sottie, the, 7 
Spectdum Stultorum, 20 n., 28, 43- 

6, 58, 72 
Speke Parrot, i49f., 171, 202 
Spenser, Edmund, 27, 166 
Suckling, Sir John, 4, 33 
Suffolk, William de la Pole, Duke 

of, 126-9, passim 
Summoner, the, as a satiric type, 

10 if.. Ill 
Summoner' s Tale, The, 11 if. 
Supplicatioun in Contemptioun of 

Syde Taillis, 203 
Swift, Jonathan, i, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 

14, 18, 31, 33 ; Gulliver's Travels, 

7 ; grotesque satire, 18 
Syr Peny, 122 

Taill of the Dog, the Scheip, and 

the Wolf, 135 
Taill of the Wolf and the Lamb, 

The, 135 
Tailors, satire against, 55, 140 
Tale, the satiric, 7, 13 
Tale of Threscore Polys and Thre, 

A, analysis of, ii9f. 
Tassoni, 7, 20 

Tel5ouris and Sowtaris, The, 138 
Temptacyon of our Lorde, The, 214 
" Testament," the, as a literary 

form, 202 
Testament and Complaynt of our 

Soverane Lordis Papyngo, The, 

analysis of, 202f. 
Testament of Cresseid, The, 134 
Theophrastus, 162 
Thistle and the Rose, The, 136 
Three Laws of Nature, Moses, and 

Christ, The, 214 



Tidings from the Session, 137; 

analysis of, I38f. 
Times, the, generalized Satire on, 

93, 120, 132, i49f. 
Timon of Phlius, 24 
Tozvn Eclogues, 20 
Travesty, 19 

Treatise of this Gallant, 217; analy- 
sis of, i7of; relation to Speke 

Parrot, 171 
Tripartite Chronicle, analysis of, 85 
Trivia, 20 

Trouveres, 4, 36, 37, 175 
Tiia Mariit We men and the We do 

^37, 140, 177 
Tunning of Elynour Rummnyg, The, 

149, 211, 225 
Turnament, The, by Dunbar, 137, 

138, 140 
Turnament of Totenham, The, 123 n. 
Twenty-Five Orders of Fools, The, 

181 
Tyndale, William, 182, 183, 184, 205 

Ulrich of Wiirtemberg, Duke, 31 

Viaggio in Parnaso, 33 

Viaje al Parnaso, 33 

Virgil, 164 

Virgile Travesti, 7, 19 

Vision of Furseus, 53 

Vision of Judgment, A, by Byron, 22 

Vision of St. Paul, 54 

Vision of Tundale, 54 

Vision of Thurcill, The, 54 

Visions of Heaven and Hell, origin, 
5S ; in France, 53f. ; in Middle 
Ages, 54 ; in England, 54 ; rela- 
tion to the Satire, 55 

Visions of the Monk of Evesham, 54 

Vita de Mecenate, 33 

Volpone, 220 

Voltaire, 7, 14 

Vox Clamantis, analysis of, 83-5 

Vox Populi, Vox Dei, 220^; analy- 
sis of, i73f. 

Wace, 82 n. 

Wars of the Roses, satire, 130-1, 
223; popular ballads, 131 n. 



245 



We lordis hes chosin a chiftane 

mervellus, i4of. 
Why Come Ye Not to Court, 145 ; 

analysis of, 1S2-4; qualities as 

satire, 154 
Wife of Bath, the, as a satiric type, 

103, 104, 105 
Wife of Bath's Tale, The, prologue 

to, i04f. 
Winchelsea, Lady, 33 
Wireker, Nigellus, 4, 84, 85, 100, 

164, 221 ; Speculum Stultorum, 4, 

20 n., 28, 43-6 
Wither, George, 33, 84 
Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal, 150-55, 



passim; 172, 173, 184, i86f., 202, 

218, 223 
Woman, satire on, 41, 104, 105, no, 

116, 122, 140, 171, 175-7 
World and the Child, The, 2i8f. 
Wulfstan, homilies, 35 ; references 

to heaven and hell, 53 
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, i, 3, 4, 5, 16, 

144, 226, 227 
Wyckliffe, John, 71, 85-92, passim; 

151, 185 

Xenophanes of Colophon, 24 
Young, Edward, i, 16 



> 



1^ 



246 



VITA 

The author of this study was born at Sanford, Florida, 
November 25, 1876. From 1894 to 1896 he was a student at 
Wofford College, where he received the degree of A.B. in 
1896. From 1900 to 1901 he studied at Columbia University, 
under the faculty of Philosophy, as a candidate for the degree 
of Master of Arts. This degree he received in 1901. From 
1901 to 1903 he studied for the degree of Doctor of Phi- 
losophy. During his residence at Columbia University he took 
courses in English under Professor Price, Professor Matthews, 
Professor Carpenter, Professor Trent, and Dr. Krapp; in 
Comparative Literature, under Professor Woodberry and Dr. 
Spingarn ; and in French, under Professor Todd. 



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